I'm not doubting a system is deployed and can function sometimes, I'm doubting it's pervasive and generally effective even in Shenzhen. NB. Nanshan district where the guy mentions being done for jaywalking is the headquarters of Tencent.
True - such surveillance is still costly, and not yet omnipresent. Similar to speed cameras at certain intersections in the US. The hope is that it remains just that, an occasional feature that inspires deterrence, and does not escalate into omniscience.
I don't think it's costly. HikVision is one town away in Dongguan, and their foreign market just evaporated due to US sanctions. Cameras here are dirt cheap and many of them come paired with ICs that provide 'AI' as standard now. The only thing different in this case is overall resolution to cover an entire intersection (probably done with multiple cameras) and the face feature extraction code. Example Huawei product https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=id=618652543962 1080p SD card logging and 'AI' (probably event detection/trigger zones) USD$25 ordered at a volume of one.
