With the 2013 leak of classified information on global surveillance programs lead by the NSA, came a host of revelations that shocked and outraged the public – the knowledge of the sheer amount of scrutiny a normal citizen is placed under, throughout his day-to-day life. Snowden's information leak of NSA's activities may have put a cap on the US intelligence agencies' more invasive surveillance programs and raised serious inquiry into the rest, but the very fact that such detailed mass surveillance exists, and can be, and has been used by governments in the name of national security, raised this question – how far can it go? How deep can the government get into the life of a normal person living his own life; and how badly can we get controlled without even knowing we are being controlled?
To answer this question we do not need to look too far at all – just to our neighbour, China, which practices mass surveillance to such a degree and magnitude that we are reminded of George Orwells' dystopian novel, 1984.
Leave alone the amount of spyware and surveillance goods that get exported out of China every year in the guise of mobile phones, laptops and other electronics, in the authoritarian government setup of Communist-party led China, the normal chinese citizen himself isn't spared – and this is how:
Video surveillance
In a project that has been going on since 2005, China has been building what it calls 'the world's largest camera surveillance network'. Dubbed as the 'grid management system', and named Skynet (Terminator fans might understand this reference), this consists of 170 million CCTV cameras which are already in place, and soon to be joined by 400 million more in the coming year. Many of these cameras are fitted with AI, which does jobs like process the big data handled by the cameras every day, and facial recognition. Chinese authorities justify their presence, saying that uptil 2012, 100,000 crimes have been solved with the help of these cameras. The real reason, however? The most important purposes of such a smart surveillance system is to crack down on social unrest triggered by petitioners and dissidents. And everyone who spoke against the ruling party – be it peaceful protesters or social activists – they are all dissidents.
Censoring web traffic
To broaden security, the Ministry of Public Security in China started The Golden Sheild Project in 2000, which aimed to build a nationwide, intelligent digital surveillance network capable of identifying and locating individuals, as well as offering the state immediate access to personal records at the push of a button. This is the umbrella project, but the most horrifying among its subprojects is infamous The Great Firewall of China, due to which the chinese online population gets highly restricted internet, one that does not include access to any foreign websites or cross-border web traffic. Even sites like Google, Facebook, and YouTube are banned, and instead the people are expected to use the Chinese versions of the products, like Renren (for social networking), Baidu (as a search engine) and Iqiyi, Toudou, etc for watching videos. Of course, all these sites redirect user data straight to the government servers, providing even more means to surveil the web traffic of the users.
Never mind the above non-chinese sites, even Winnie the Pooh was banned for a short while. Though what they found about that lovable cartoon worth censoring, no one knows.
Phone calls
It It only gets worse from here. China is also well-known to wiretap phones, with an instance reported of a unnamed politician tapping into the conversations of high-ranking government officials and even China's President. Private phone calls get automatically disconnected if any controversial word, like 'protest', is mentioned. International calls are strictly monitored, and any person making one would immediately get a message, warning to beware of potential scams from these phone calls. National Public Radio(NPR) of China has even reported instances of the cellphone microphones being remotely activated to act as listening devices. This scenario is so bad that government officials and security agents – who know of the extent of this surveillance – disable their phones before discussing sensitive information.
Social credit score
The question that comes to mind is what does China do with all this information anyway? Well, besides imprisoning those who disagree with them, they also use this information to publicly rate the chines population, Chinese citizens are given a 'social credit score', wich is similiar to regular credit score. The difference is, the social credit score is based on private behaviour, and has a widespread effect on a person's day-to-day life. It is a national 'reputation' system in which each person is assigned a rating based on government data regarding their economic and social status. According to the State Council of Beijing, the Social Credit System focuses on four areas: "honesty in government affairs", "commercial integrity", "societal integrity", and "judicial credibility". It is meant to judge the credit worth of a person based on his past activities. That being said, it has been reported that even badmouthing the government online, playing video games, or even being associated with someone who is considered a political dissident, brings the score down. And this score can assist or desist the citizen from getting access to social amenities like a travel visa, a bank loan, or even a job. This system is intended to create the fear of dissent and keep the chinese citizens toeing the line.
Registering name to use phone services and internet
In 2013, the government started a new programme that required users of mobile phones and the Internet to identify themselves by name. This meant that users of internet services could no longer go under any handle or alias to protect their anonymity – and even if they did, they werent anonymous from the government. Their Ministry of IT also requires all major landline and mobile telephone companies to put a real name registration scheme into effect and to 'regulate the dissemination of objectionable information over the network'. All of this is meant to 'protect citizens' personal information and curb the spread of detrimental information'. Translation – for the government to know who posts what about the current state of being on the internet, or in mobile chats and telephone converstaions, and arrest all those who dont agree with the current state of the government.
Logging genetic code in a national DNA database
This is a more recent news event where chinese authorities are reportedly collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, and other biometric data from chinese residents in the western region, where a community of Uighurs (a muslim turkish minoirty) reside.This is specifically a region with the most political unrest. This data is basically surveillance based on enthnicity. Officials are also building a database of iris scans and blood types of everyone aged between 12 and 65, adding to controls in a nation that has basically become an 'open-air prison'. These collections are done through government-provided medical checkups, and the patients are often unaware that their data is actually being transimitted to the government without their knowledge. These physical check-ups are 'voluntary' on paper and mandatory in reality. And those people who are classified as 'focu personnel' – those the government deems dangerous – have their biometric data collected regardless of age. This mandatory databanking of a population's biodata is a gross violation of international human right norms and and has put the human right activists in an uproar.
Conclusion
So that was China. It's mass surveillance activists are unequivocally condemned by activists and the foreign governments alike, but the chinese government don't give a damn. And neither do, it seems, the chinese residents. They seem mostly content about the current state of affairs in the country, not expressing the slightest discontentment about their government knowing their every movement. Or if there is discontent, it is quickly supressed.
This is the ultimate worse-case scenario that mass-surveillance can get to – an omniscient eye, seeing and knowing all, a true Skynet. This is something every conscious person would be aware of, and a warning to us all.
Follow us here for more details:
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Twitter: @NewAgeInformers
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To answer this question we do not need to look too far at all – just to our neighbour, China, which practices mass surveillance to such a degree and magnitude that we are reminded of George Orwells' dystopian novel, 1984.
Leave alone the amount of spyware and surveillance goods that get exported out of China every year in the guise of mobile phones, laptops and other electronics, in the authoritarian government setup of Communist-party led China, the normal chinese citizen himself isn't spared – and this is how:
Video surveillance
In a project that has been going on since 2005, China has been building what it calls 'the world's largest camera surveillance network'. Dubbed as the 'grid management system', and named Skynet (Terminator fans might understand this reference), this consists of 170 million CCTV cameras which are already in place, and soon to be joined by 400 million more in the coming year. Many of these cameras are fitted with AI, which does jobs like process the big data handled by the cameras every day, and facial recognition. Chinese authorities justify their presence, saying that uptil 2012, 100,000 crimes have been solved with the help of these cameras. The real reason, however? The most important purposes of such a smart surveillance system is to crack down on social unrest triggered by petitioners and dissidents. And everyone who spoke against the ruling party – be it peaceful protesters or social activists – they are all dissidents.
Censoring web traffic
To broaden security, the Ministry of Public Security in China started The Golden Sheild Project in 2000, which aimed to build a nationwide, intelligent digital surveillance network capable of identifying and locating individuals, as well as offering the state immediate access to personal records at the push of a button. This is the umbrella project, but the most horrifying among its subprojects is infamous The Great Firewall of China, due to which the chinese online population gets highly restricted internet, one that does not include access to any foreign websites or cross-border web traffic. Even sites like Google, Facebook, and YouTube are banned, and instead the people are expected to use the Chinese versions of the products, like Renren (for social networking), Baidu (as a search engine) and Iqiyi, Toudou, etc for watching videos. Of course, all these sites redirect user data straight to the government servers, providing even more means to surveil the web traffic of the users.
Never mind the above non-chinese sites, even Winnie the Pooh was banned for a short while. Though what they found about that lovable cartoon worth censoring, no one knows.
Phone calls
It It only gets worse from here. China is also well-known to wiretap phones, with an instance reported of a unnamed politician tapping into the conversations of high-ranking government officials and even China's President. Private phone calls get automatically disconnected if any controversial word, like 'protest', is mentioned. International calls are strictly monitored, and any person making one would immediately get a message, warning to beware of potential scams from these phone calls. National Public Radio(NPR) of China has even reported instances of the cellphone microphones being remotely activated to act as listening devices. This scenario is so bad that government officials and security agents – who know of the extent of this surveillance – disable their phones before discussing sensitive information.
Social credit score
The question that comes to mind is what does China do with all this information anyway? Well, besides imprisoning those who disagree with them, they also use this information to publicly rate the chines population, Chinese citizens are given a 'social credit score', wich is similiar to regular credit score. The difference is, the social credit score is based on private behaviour, and has a widespread effect on a person's day-to-day life. It is a national 'reputation' system in which each person is assigned a rating based on government data regarding their economic and social status. According to the State Council of Beijing, the Social Credit System focuses on four areas: "honesty in government affairs", "commercial integrity", "societal integrity", and "judicial credibility". It is meant to judge the credit worth of a person based on his past activities. That being said, it has been reported that even badmouthing the government online, playing video games, or even being associated with someone who is considered a political dissident, brings the score down. And this score can assist or desist the citizen from getting access to social amenities like a travel visa, a bank loan, or even a job. This system is intended to create the fear of dissent and keep the chinese citizens toeing the line.
Registering name to use phone services and internet
In 2013, the government started a new programme that required users of mobile phones and the Internet to identify themselves by name. This meant that users of internet services could no longer go under any handle or alias to protect their anonymity – and even if they did, they werent anonymous from the government. Their Ministry of IT also requires all major landline and mobile telephone companies to put a real name registration scheme into effect and to 'regulate the dissemination of objectionable information over the network'. All of this is meant to 'protect citizens' personal information and curb the spread of detrimental information'. Translation – for the government to know who posts what about the current state of being on the internet, or in mobile chats and telephone converstaions, and arrest all those who dont agree with the current state of the government.
Logging genetic code in a national DNA database
This is a more recent news event where chinese authorities are reportedly collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, and other biometric data from chinese residents in the western region, where a community of Uighurs (a muslim turkish minoirty) reside.This is specifically a region with the most political unrest. This data is basically surveillance based on enthnicity. Officials are also building a database of iris scans and blood types of everyone aged between 12 and 65, adding to controls in a nation that has basically become an 'open-air prison'. These collections are done through government-provided medical checkups, and the patients are often unaware that their data is actually being transimitted to the government without their knowledge. These physical check-ups are 'voluntary' on paper and mandatory in reality. And those people who are classified as 'focu personnel' – those the government deems dangerous – have their biometric data collected regardless of age. This mandatory databanking of a population's biodata is a gross violation of international human right norms and and has put the human right activists in an uproar.
Conclusion
So that was China. It's mass surveillance activists are unequivocally condemned by activists and the foreign governments alike, but the chinese government don't give a damn. And neither do, it seems, the chinese residents. They seem mostly content about the current state of affairs in the country, not expressing the slightest discontentment about their government knowing their every movement. Or if there is discontent, it is quickly supressed.
This is the ultimate worse-case scenario that mass-surveillance can get to – an omniscient eye, seeing and knowing all, a true Skynet. This is something every conscious person would be aware of, and a warning to us all.
Follow us here for more details:
facebook: CLICK HERE!!!!!!!!!!
Twitter: @NewAgeInformers
Instagram: @new_age_informers_
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