Beijing’s subway stations will adopt facial-recognition technology to determine which passengers require further security screening, Beijing Youth Daily reported Wednesday.

Facial-recognition cameras at stations’ security checkpoints will identify passengers and allow those who have been “whitelisted” with sufficiently high “passenger credit scores” to pass through an expedited channel, while others will be subject to further screening, Xie Zhengguang, the general manager of Beijing Metro Operation Co. Ltd., explained Tuesday during a forum on urban transportation. Neither he nor an official from Beijing’s Rail Traffic Control Center who also spoke at the forum gave a timeline for when the system might be implemented.

Facial recognition has a wide range of applications in China, from monitoring students’ behavior in class to catching jaywalkers. The technology has already been introduced on subway systems in cities like Shenzhen and Chengdu. (Image: VCG)

Clarification: A previous version of this story stated that passengers would be identified and subject to different screening measures based on their social credit scores. However, while little is known about the “passenger credit score” Xie mentioned, it appears to be separate from a wider social credit system.