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A Chinese user, smartphone in hand, on the sidelines of celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, September 26, 2019 in Beijing. CHRISTMAS CELIS / AFP

In China, from Sunday, December 1, anyone who wants to buy a phone must agree to be scanned face. Aim for Beijing: better internet monitoring, to which these phones are connected.

" Protecting the legitimate rights and interests of citizens in cyberspace ", this is how Beijing presents this facial scan when buying a phone. " Control, and then more control, " wrote on the social network Weibo a surfer when the new rule was announced last month.

In fact, Beijing, which has been monitoring and censoring the internet for years, is trying to gain access to the real names of Internet users. As they connect most often from their phone, their face will be scanned at the time of purchase to see if they match the ID presented.

► To listen on RFI: Face recognition, security or freedom in danger?

China, which is at the forefront of this type of technology, has for years used the facial recognition, more and more adopted by consumers, to pay in supermarkets for example. But Beijing is also using it to monitor its population, particularly in the Xinjiang region.

There, members of the Uyghur ethnic group who have not been locked up in camps are under constant surveillance cameras using these facial recognition software. In 2017, China had 170 million surveillance cameras, and planned to install 400 million more by 2020.

► To read also : Internment of the Uyghurs: "The documents are without appeal, Beijing lied"