As a rare lawsuit pushes back against China’s ubiquitous use of facial recognition systems, a Toronto-area businessman with close ties to Beijing is looking to implement the technology in Canada, prompting concern from privacy and human-rights activists. Foody Mart is planning to buy the system from SnapPay, a Toronto firm that distributes Chinese payment gear from tech giants Tencent and Alibaba, Ryan Li, another company executive, told Yahoo Finance recently. In China, facial recognition has become a popular retail tool, but is also at the heart of a growing digital surveillance apparatus. But SnapPay’s website says it specializes in bringing to North America retail payment systems Alipay, part of the Alibaba Group, and WeChat Pay, an offshoot of the WeChat messaging app. Both AliPay and WeChat Pay introduced facial recognition payment systems this year.

Source: National Post November 12, 2019 15:57 UTC