Can You Refuse Facial Recognition at Home in China?

For a resident facing a face-scanning gate, the useful question is whether another way into the building actually works. China's rules provide a route to ask for one. Official residential enforcement reporting describes card and password alternatives alongside rectification, but does not establish that every resident can exercise that choice without a fight.

Verified: written protections and reported local interventions. Contested: no documented dispute between competing evidential accounts assessed here. Unresolved: comparative security effectiveness, nationwide compliance and the experience at any particular gate.

Article 10 of the CAC and Ministry of Public Security's facial-recognition measures prohibits face recognition as the sole verification method where another non-face method achieves the same purpose or equivalent business requirements. If a person refuses facial identity verification, another reasonable, convenient method must be provided. The provision expressly preserves other state rules governing facial identity verification. The measures took effect on 1 June 2025. Chinese original, Articles 10 and 20.

Residential entrances are an intended application: the CAC's accompanying explanation specifically addresses compulsory face scans at housing compounds. Its stated objective combines personal-information protection with continued technological development. That is the regulator's account of its purpose; it does not tell us how reliably property companies obey. CAC Q&A.

A separate judicial protection predates these measures. Since 1 August 2021, Article 10 of the Supreme People's Court interpretation has supported requests by owners or property users for another reasonable verification method when a building manager makes face recognition the only route. The text covers more than homeowners. SPC interpretation.

A card or password that opens the gate without facial matching lets a resident decline the face scan while retaining access. A nominal alternative that leaves someone waiting for unavailable staff raises a different question: is the choice reasonable and convenient in practice? This is a practical assessment, not a claim that the rule specifies identical waiting times, a free card or one required technology.

The distinction matters because an entrance is used repeatedly. A resident may need it late at night, when carrying shopping, or when caring for someone else. An alternative should be assessed in those ordinary circumstances. A consent screen alone cannot show that the route works.

A Procuratorate Daily report published on 9 April 2026 describes intervention in Nanzheng district, Hanzhong, Shaanxi. Investigators visiting residential compounds in 2025 found problems including inadequate notices and encryption, internet transmission to third-party storage and insufficient protection for children's facial information.

An October 2025 hearing included property-company representatives and relevant departments. Following procuratorial recommendations, the departments inspected 28 compounds using facial gates and issued more than 20 rectification notices. The report describes security changes including local encrypted storage and removal of names and photographs from gate displays. It also describes card/password entry options alongside facial recognition; a resident quoted during a follow-up visit said these options were retained. It does not establish when those alternatives were installed or whether they had previously been withdrawn.

That is documented operator change in an official account. It is not our own gate test or technical audit. The follow-up is described as recent; the report does not provide an exact completion date, nationwide denominator or long-term failure rate. Original newspaper report, page 2; SPP-hosted report.

An account published by Zhumadian Intermediate People's Court on 25 June 2025 describes a company installing a face-only residential gate in April 2023. An owner surnamed Zhang objected because of leakage concerns, requested another entry method and went to court after communication failed. The court's analysis says another reasonable method should be provided under the 2021 interpretation.

The account does not disclose a judgment date, docket or verified follow-up showing the new route in use. It establishes a reported dispute and judicial support for the request. It cannot be presented as a June 2025 judgment enforcing the new measures, or as proof that Zhang subsequently entered without difficulty. Court account.

The measures apply to facial-information processing through facial-recognition applications within China, while excluding specified research and algorithm-training activities. That exclusion does not itself exempt those activities from other applicable law. Article 2.

The CAC explains that operators must establish purpose and necessity, give notice and assess personal-information impacts. Where consent is the processing basis, consent must be informed, voluntary, explicit and separate, with convenient withdrawal. It also explains the default of storage within the recognition device and no external internet transmission, subject to statutory provisions or separate consent. Retention is limited to the shortest necessary period unless law or administrative regulation provides otherwise. Official explanation.

The Personal Information Protection Law classifies biometrics as sensitive information. Its Article 13 also recognises lawful grounds other than consent, including necessary performance of legal duties and emergencies. Withdrawal does not retrospectively invalidate earlier lawful consent-based processing. Deletion has conditions and exceptions, including statutory retention and technical difficulty. A resident should not be promised an absolute veto over every lawful use, or immediate disappearance of every stored trace. PIPL, Articles 13, 15, 28 and 47.

Article 17 allows complaints and reports to departments responsible for personal-information protection. The receiving department must handle them promptly under law and communicate the result. Facial-recognition measures.

PIPL Articles 60 and 65 provide the wider framework: departments act within their responsibilities and must publish complaint contacts. Use the published route of the competent local authority; these provisions do not create a single residential-gate hotline. PIPL Article 50 also requires a convenient rights-request mechanism, reasons for refusal and permits litigation following rejection. PIPL.

One concrete local example is Beijing 12345. A Beijing government notice dated 8 July 2025 invited reports of unlawful facial-recognition practices during a local campaign. The page is archived. It confirms the dated Beijing route, not a nationwide remit or a guarantee of today's handling. Beijing notice.

For a resident making a request, useful evidence includes the gate notice, the proposed alternative, times it failed, and the manager's response. Ask which legal basis and any claimed exception apply, and how refusal changes entry and data processing. Keeping that record is practical advice for documenting the problem; it is not a statutory prerequisite to complain. Individual legal outcomes depend on the circumstances.

China's residential refusal protections have a concrete legal foundation. Hanzhong supplies a reported example of security rectification alongside retained entry alternatives. Its limits are equally concrete: an official local report cannot certify national compliance.

Convenience and security are credible reasons to consider an access system, but neither establishes that collecting faces is necessary or that it performs better than a card. The sources here supply no measured crime reduction, accuracy comparison or waiting-time benefit. Reported resident concerns are attributable concerns, not a population survey or proof of a breach.

For this question, the decisive outcome is a functioning alternative that the resident can use. Keeping that outcome separate from notices, consent and stored-data safeguards makes the protection possible to assess. It also leaves room for evidence to change the verdict.

Related file: China’s Surveillance Grid Before COVID: The Roots of Digital Authoritarianism.