Why We Should Fear Chinas Emerging High-Tech Surveillance State

(Forbes) Xinjiang 2018. In the world of surveillance few terms are more hackneyed and hyperbolized than Orwellian and Big Brother. But earlier this month when Nikki Hayley the US Ambassador to the UN described Chinas subjugation of Xinjiangs Uighurs as being straight out of George Orwell" she pretty much nailed it. Xinjiang is a state surveillance laboratory with unconstrained deployments of early-stage commercial technologies being used to suppress an ethnic minority. Upwards of a million people forced into re-education camps. Police checkpoints. Facial iris and license plate recognition. Geofenced travel restrictions. Biometric registration. GPS tagging. Blanket video surveillance. And of course mandatory communications monitoring. This is the reality of a high-tech surveillance state. A (Slightly) More Polished Face Of Chinas Surveillance State Beijing/Shanghai 2018. Travel east and you will enter a much larger experiment in high-tech surveillance for population control. China has sold its people a chilling dystopian dream built on a fanciful ability to watch everyone everywhere with a sinister undercurrent of we know who you are. Yes kind of like telling your toddler that you have eyes in the back of your head and that youre always watching. It doesnt matter that its not true. Thats not the point of the exercise. Read More