China using personal data to track minorities
BEIJING• Human Rights Watch says it has found new evidence that authorities in one of China’s most repressive regions are sweeping up citizens’ personal information in a stark example of how big-data technology can be used to police a population.
The rights group used publicly available government procurement documents, media reports and interviews to assemble details of the policing program, called the “Integrated Joint Operations Platform,” in Xinjiang, a sprawling area in northwest China that security officials say harbours separatist and religious extremist elements.
Unidentified sources inside Xinjiang described to Human Rights Watch the computer and mobile app interfaces of the IJOP software that tracks almost all citizens of the Turkicspeaking Muslim Uighur ethnic minority and stores detailed information, including their travel history, prayer habits, books owned, and banking and health records.
Procurement notices show that the IJOP also deploys licence plate tracking and facial-recognition cameras to follow people in real time and provide “predictive warnings” about impending crime, Human Rights Watch said.
Although surveillance is pervasive in many countries, including the United States, and has the potential for abuse, the technology is being deployed far more broadly in Xinjiang, said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch and the report’s author.
“In China the programs are very explicitly focused on people who are politically threatening or an entire Uighur ethnic group,” Wang said.
An official in the press office of Xinjiang police headquarters on Monday confirmed AP’s questions had been received but said leaders were out.
China’s 10 million Uighurs already face a raft of restrictions, including with procuring passports. Hotels are required to register their presence with local authorities.