Step by step, China has been rolling out surveillance technology that is remarkably intrusive, comprehensive and ubiquitous. Eager to exploit gains in technology, Beijing seems little concerned about human rights or privacy violations.
On Dec. 10, the BBC reported that China seeks to build the world's largest camera surveillance network, with 170 million closed-circuit cameras installed and an estimated 400 million new ones coming in the next three years.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch reported on Dec. 13 that Chinese authorities have been collecting DNA samples, blood types, fingerprints and iris scans, in some cases possibly without informing people, from a large swath of the population in the restive Xinjiang province in far northwestern China. Ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang have long complained about repression and discrimination at the hands of the Chinese government; resentment has sometimes turned violent. According to Human Rights Watch, in a procedure rolled out this year, the authorities there are collecting the DNA and blood-type information under the cover of a "free annual physical exams program called Physicals for All."
For several years now, China has been building out a system known as the social credit score, which collects information on the behavior of individuals from data such as financial transactions, shopping habits, social media and interactions with friends. The authorities plan to make the system mandatory for the whole country by 2020.
China promotes itself as a rising power, but a state that lords over its people with hidden cameras, secret databases and intrusive algorithms sounds more like prison.
Editorial on 12/19/2017