China to use AI to stop 'uncivilised visitors' from entering public parks

China is planning to introduce artificial intelligence systems in parks in Beijing to ban "uncivilised visitors" from entering the public areas in the city.

The Beijing park management authorities are mulling to have a list of unruly visitors identified through artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology.

The list will allow the authorities to curb bad tourist behaviour during events such as the three-day holidays around Tomb Sweeping Day, also known as the Qingming Festival.

On the second day of the three-day holidays around Tomb Sweeping Day, which ended on Sunday, parks in Beijing witnessed an upsurge in visitors, which led to uncivilised tourist behaviour, officials at the Beijing Municipal Administration Centre of Parks told the Beijing Youth Daily.

 

The centre is considering establishing a "blacklist" to restrict loutish travellers - for example, those who destroy cultural relics and refuse to stop - from entering the park, the report said.

The report said that some tourists have been spotted climbing peach trees, picking flowers and damaging plants.

There were also people who fished near the lake and sold things privately in the park.

Mi Shanpo, an official at the centre, said "facial recognition" and other technologies will be used to detect uncivilised behaviour.

In 2017, six facial scanners were installed in the male and female sections of the busiest toilets in the Temple of Heaven, after reports of an increasing number of local residents raiding the park's toilets to steal toilet paper.

The China National Tourism Administration implemented tighter rules for tourists in 2016, and placed 20 people who failed to observe public order and scenic regulations on the blacklist.

The blacklisted travellers' bad behaviour included quarrelling, fighting, disturbing the peace, climbing on statues and stealing scenic assets.

China has already banned over a million people from travelling in flights and high speed trains for bad behaviour. Chinese courts have also blacklisted over nine million loan defaulters and froze USD 27.7 billion deposits owned by them.