New Chinese surveillance leaves foreigners nowhere to hide

When a cybersecurity researcher known by the pseudonym NetAskari recently clicked on a tab labeled "Inquiry for journalist files" on an unsecured Chinese web dashboard, he expected to see a jumble of auto-generated mock data. Instead, familiar faces popped up on the screen. It was a comprehensive database of almost every foreign journalist based in Beijing around 2021, including official passport photos taken at the entry/exit bureau, private cellphone numbers, visa details and dates of birth.

He also found his own exact personal information lying dormant on this Chinese police watch list. "It was more interesting than shocking," NetAskari told DW. "When you work as a journalist in China , you basically assume you are always on their radar. But what surprised me was simply how easy it was to access this highly sensitive system." What NetAskari had stumbled upon is part modern China's emerging system of "holographic profiles." He had unwittingly accessed a demonstration version of a remote tracking system designed for the Public Security Bureau in Zhangjiakou, the Hebei province city that hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics. Though it was only a test panel, it was populated with real datasets, clearly outlining the trajectory of China's state surveillance machine, which is rapidly evolving from a network of simple street cameras into a data-fused, 24/7, predictive social control behemoth. For years, China has operated the world's most extensive CCTV network. A massive initiative known as the "Xueliang" (Bright Eyes) project aims to merge these isolated islands of surveillance spread across the country. But the data on the Zhangjiakou police dashboard shows the granular detail with which authorities can track an individual. The system can track connections between people Image: NetAskari This system no longer relies solely on police cameras on street corners; it accurately records the specific train carriage and seat number a target occupies when arriving from Beijing or Shanghai, for example. It even synchronizes photos taken by facial-recognition ticket gates at local ski resorts directly into its tracking mechanism. The movements of the researcher's acquaintances who recently skied in Zhangjiakou were precisely flagged and mapped out with detailed trajectories in the system. "The idea is simply to process as much data as possible from as many sensors as possible in real time," the researcher noted.

Key points

• He also found his own exact personal information lying dormant on this Chinese police watch list.
• "It was more interesting than shocking," NetAskari told DW.
• "When you work as a journalist in China , you basically assume you are always on their radar.
• But what surprised me was simply how easy it was to access this highly sensitive system." What NetAskari had stumbled upon is part modern China's emerging system of "holographic profiles." He had u…
• Though it was only a test panel, it was populated with real datasets, clearly outlining the trajectory of China's state surveillance machine, which is rapidly evolving from a network of simple stre…