Chinese workers printed colleagues’ faces to trick attendance system and skip work

Employees at a neighbourhood committee office in Wenzhou City in China’s eastern Zhejiang province were caught wearing paper masks printed with images of their co-workers’ faces to circumvent the office’s biometric attendance system, according to local and international reports. One person could thus check in multiple absent staff members by presenting the fake face mask to the scanner.

The scheme was uncovered after a resident, surnamed Li, informed authorities about suspicious activity at the neighbourhood committee, the lowest level of urban administration in China. Surveillance footage positioned above the facial recognition terminal reportedly recorded the misconduct and showed the printed masks being used to trick the device.

Neighbourhood committees, also known as residents’ committees, play a grassroots administrative role in urban areas and are not formal civil servants. Committee staff typically receive modest allowances rather than full government salaries, but they handle community management, basic public services and local administrative tasks.

It remains unclear how many employees were involved in the scheme or how Li gained access to the footage that revealed the practice. Local authorities have said they will investigate the matter and are expected to provide an official response by the end of December.