Washington, May 24 (SocialNews.XYZ) A massive surveillance system established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is tracking the real-time locations, interpersonal relationships, and activity histories of foreigners within China, reports said.
The platform, known as the Dynamic Control Platform for Overseas Personnel, tracks the foreign personnel by integrating security cameras, facial recognition, visa records, and mobile app data, the New Tang Dynasty Television reported, citing an analysis by cybersecurity research organisation, NetAskari.
Foreign journalists and other "sensitive individuals" are designated as primary targets for the surveillance.
“Apart from foreign journalists, the platform focuses on specific groups, including citizens of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The system monitors the exact distribution of these citizens within specific Chinese cities, down to the neighbourhood block level,” Mary Man said, writing for the NTD.
The vigilance among foreign visitors has been significantly heightened by the CCP’s pervasive surveillance network.
According to the report, the files maintained by the database included a photo, the country of origin, employer, name in both English and Chinese, date of birth, citizenship, passport number, and Chinese mobile number.
"You can see who knows each other, who are classmates, who are colleagues, if they live in the same neighbourhood, if they live in the same block, if they've been spotted on camera together even," Mary Man wrote, citing Sophia Yan, a correspondent for a UK-based daily, who discovered her own personal profile within this database.
China now has one monitoring device for every two citizens, with a surveillance network exceeding 700 million cameras.
Other than monitoring incomers, the CCP also blocked several independent media from entering the country.
“Multiple American journalists scheduled to cover Trump’s visit were denied visas by the CCP. Among those barred were The Epoch Times White House correspondent Travis Gillmore, NTD Television reporter Mari Otsu, and photojournalist Lei Chen,” noted Man.
Holding 116 media professionals behind bars, China is the world’s biggest jailer of the press, and ranked as third-worst in the World Press Freedom Index, just above North Korea and Eritrea, the report highlighted.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz