Fear of nothing to hide? How do Chinese people feel about privacy when facing facial recognition cameras?

Ziteng Fan and Jason Wu

Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 2024, vol. 46, issue 4, 447-470

Abstract: Facial-recognition cameras are becoming increasingly important for governments around the world to help maintain public security and improve public services. Despite these benefits, previous studies have shown that facial-recognition cameras may also cause risks such as privacy violations. This study explores how citizens respond to government-sponsored facial-recognition cameras in terms of privacy concerns in China, which is a country with a well-established digital system. By using a national survey combined with facial-recognition camera data, this study reveals that the presence of government-sponsored facial-recognition cameras does not lead to increased information privacy concerns among Chinese citizens. Instead, citizens in China are generally very willing to accept facial-recognition cameras built by governments, and this acceptance increases when citizens’ trust in companies and government institutions is greater. Our study suggests that the application of facial-recognition cameras has probably been normalised because people are more likely to consider the social and economic advantages of such application over the downside, specifically that related to privacy intrusion.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/23276665.2024.2398212

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