Mass surveillance in China

[3][28] As of 2018, the Chinese central government had also adopted facial recognition technology, surveillance drones, robot police, and big data collection targeting online social media platforms to monitor its citizens.

[2][16][17] State media in China claim that Skynet is the largest video surveillance system in the world, utilizing facial recognition technology and big data analysis.

[86] When shopping in the self-service markets of Alibaba and Jingdong, two top Chinese e-commerce companies, customers can use electronic payments through the facial recognition system, which links them with their bank cards.

However, new reports state that such information is false, with the social credit system being low-tech, with no unified score for citizens and the government mainly focusing on fraudulent and unethical businesses that renege on debt repayments and financial agreements or fail to honor legal contracts.

[107] The resident ID card acts as the primary form of identification for citizens within China and is required for almost all basic government services and administrative tasks in everyday life.

Hukou is divided into either agricultural or urban status and acts as a form of social control by restricting the area in which an individual and his or her children can obtain access to education, healthcare, housing, employment and or other government services.

[citation needed] Additionally, they are required to maintain detailed logs of user activities and ensure systems for network security monitoring and reporting are in place.

[122] Although the exact definition of what constitutes network logs remains unclear, it has been interpreted by Jones Day and other international law firms to refer to weblogs or Internet browsing history.

[129] Article 7: Upon approval by the State Council, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs may, on the basis of the need for exit/entry administration, set forth regulations on the collection and keep of fingerprints and other biometric identification information of the persons who exit or enter China.Following an attack at the Kunming railway station in Southern China, the Chinese government began mandating security screening prior to entrance at metro and train stations across China.

[130] In 2019, the South China Morning Post reported that the Beijing Subway would also begin sorting passengers using facial recognition based on information pulled from the social credit system and criminal offending databases.

[131] In April 2021, it was reported that the citizens were being forced to install an application developed by the National Anti-Fraud Center of the Ministry of Public Security, ostensibly for the purposes of preventing telecommunications fraud and overseas scams.

In September, it was reported that public security officials were using the application to track and question individuals who had accessed overseas financial news containing negative coverage of the Chinese economy.

[136] Golden Shield is a giant mechanism of censorship and surveillance that blocks tens of thousands of websites that may present negative reports about the CCP's narrative and control.

[145] The data is fed into the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (Chinese: 一体化联合作战平台), an AI-powered system used for mass surveillance which generates lists of suspects for detention.

[151] The Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP, 一体化联合作战平台), used by the government to monitor the population, particularly Uyghurs, was reported by The Washington Post and Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 2018.

The list showed that reasons for imprisonment included religious practice such as studying the Koran without state permission or having a long beard, using software or online services such as a VPN, travelling outside of Aksu, switching off one's phone repeatedly, or having "extremist thoughts".

[158] Visitors to the region are also reportedly forced to install an application named BXAQ at key border and entry checkpoints, which: "acts like malware" and siphons off call, text, files, browsing data and other device information off to servers controlled by public security authorities.

[171] On July 21, 2021, the Hong Kong Legislative Council began talks to implement "anti-doxing" laws in response to the 2019-pro democracy protests in which members of the Hong Kong Police Force and certain judges were doxed or had their personal information such as names, addresses, names of family members, details of children and schools attended leaked to the public in retribution for violence or police brutality encountered during the course of the protests.

In response Asia Internet Coalition an advocacy group consisting of Google, Facebook and Twitter, warned in a June 25 letter to the commissioner that tech companies could stop offering their services in Hong Kong if changes were enacted since "the measures were "not aligned with global norms and trends", and that any legislation that could curb freedom of speech "must be built upon principles of necessity and proportionality".

[173] The move coincided closely with the passage of the national security law and reflects parallel arrangements in mainland China where users are also required to register new SIM cards using real name identification.

Dan McDevitt, manager of website Greatfire.org wrote on Nikkei Asia in response to the new regulations that Beijing had "brought its repressive surveillance tools to Hong Kong", gradually tightening control over the Internet and eroding the privacy, forums for open communication and civil society post enactment of the national security law.

[179] Since 2018, HKIA (Hong Kong International Airport) has also operated facial recognition and biometric smart-gates to assist passengers to pass through security and clear customs faster.

[181] In January 2024, the Hong Kong Free Press reported that the city planned to install 2,000 more cameras, with officials citing that current numbers were "relatively small".

Chief Executive of Hong Kong John Lee also did not respond to whether cameras utilized facial recognition technology; stating: "disclosing detailed information of the systems may reveal to criminals relevant government departments’ security arrangements, as well as the capabilities and investigatory techniques of law enforcement agencies.

"[182] In February 2024, South China Morning Post reported that Raymond Siu, Commissioner of the Hong Kong Police supported plans to install a further 2,000 surveillance cameras throughout the city in densely populated and "high crime" areas to ensure resident safety.

Amidst privacy concerns, Siu defended the plans, stating such measures were "common sense" and that other jurisdictions such as Singapore and the UK had already employed such technologies, again adding that the police force would not rule out the possibility of using facial recognition in the surveillance system in the future.

[citation needed] The bridge, since constructed in 2018 had hosted a Chinese police checkpoint staffed by officers from the mainland China Immigration Inspection agency of the Ministry of Public Security.

Upon further investigation it was revealed the man had been detained by Chinese police while on his way to Macau on the Zhuhai-Macau Port Artificial Island (a section of the bridge mid-way leading into an underwater tunnel).

[190] Since the bridge was built by the central government, Beijing exercises jurisdictional authority over it, on the basis that the Zhuhai-Macau Port Artificial Island is part of Chinese territory.

[192] This has become a heightened concern since China started offering residence cards and a full national status to people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau who were living in the mainland.