Invisible infrared surveillance technology and those caught in its digital cage

When you unlock a phone, step into view of a security camera or drive past a license plate reader at night, beams of infrared light – invisible to the naked eye – shine onto the unique contours of your face, your body, your license plate lettering. Those infrared beams allow cameras to pick out and recognize individual human beings.

Over the past decade, facial recognition technology has gone from science fiction fantasy to worldwide reality – nowhere more so than in China, home to more security cameras than the rest of the world combined.