The AI algorithm, the name of which can be translated as either Dragon Eye or Dragonfly Eye, was developed by Shanghai-based tech firm Yitu. It works off of China's national database, which consists of all 1.3 billion residents of the Asian nation as well as 500 million more people who have entered the country at some point. Dragon Eye interfaces with the database to detect the faces of individuals. Yitu chief executive and co-founder Zhu Long told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that the purpose of the algorithm is to fight crime and make the world a safer place. "Let's say that we live in Shanghai, a city of 24 million people. It's challenging for the government to police such a large population. And it would be impossible without technology. Even when we have many cameras installed, it's a hard task. You can't watch all the videos, and doing a search is very time-consuming and requires too many resources to get meaningful results from such a huge amount of data," Long said.