Facial recognition tech fights coronavirus in Chinese city

People queue to undergo nucleic acid testing for the Covid-19 coronavirus in the city of Ruili which borders Myanmar, in China's southwestern Yunnan province on July 8, 2021. — AFP

BEIJING: Facial recognition tech linked to personal health codes has been rolled out in a Chinese city bordering Myanmar as authorities seek to squash a coronavirus outbreak.

China is one of the world’s most surveilled countries, with the government rushing to install more than 200 million CCTV cameras to “cover all public spaces” in the past five years.