China’s facial-recognition surveillance secrets revealed in major leak, by Sharri Markson.
The Chinese government’s surveillance of ethnic minority groups in their own homes, in their cars and via their mobile phones has been exposed in a major security leak.
The Australian can reveal the Chinese Communist Party has installed facial-recognition software in residential buildings that are home to members of the Tujia and Miao tribes in Yuping Dong Autonomous County near the city of Tongren in the southwest province of Guizhou.
Similar to Uighurs and Tibetans, the Tujia and Miao tribes are designated ethnic minority groups, are disproportionately Christian and have a history of religious persecution by the Chinese government.
Photographs show how the CCP tracks the identity of each citizen — even children — as they arrive and leave their homes and also monitors their visitors, with some images capturing groups of young people sitting inside together and texting on their mobile phones. …
The activists leaked the real-time facial recognition data, while it was still operational and live-streaming, to an international group of cyber security analysts specialising in China. …
[Former Australian and US government cyber security contractor Robert Potter]: “It’s the expansion of facial recognition, which is extensively used in public, and it’s now being applied to homes … They are controlling entry and exit to buildings. They are turning people’s houses into prisons. It’s so shameful.” …
Starting with the non-Han groups:
Surveillance technologies that have been used extensively in Tibet and the Xinjiang Province are now being rolled out to target other minorities across China, said Fulbright University professor Christopher Balding …
“It clearly gives them the ability to say this person brought in five people to their home on a Sunday morning or to clock if it’s happening at specific times.”
China also pioneered the technical means to censor the Internet, which is being adopted by other authoritarian regimes. Inspired by Orwell, made in China.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
