China Announces Major Urban Surveillance Program

Within just 30 years, the Chinese city of Shenzhen has grown from a village into the most developed city in China with a population of 12.4 million people. Although it is one of the most prosperous cities in China, Shenzhen apparently suffers from widespread crime and prostitution. To combat illegal activities, 180,000 closed circuit TV (CCTV) cameras have already been installed throughout the city. But Shenzhen will soon become the testing ground for a new comprehensive security program that will include CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology and identity cards embedded with computer chips. The program, dubbed the Golden Shield Project, integrates these technologies:

• the installation of more than 20,000 additional CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology;
• all citizens carrying residence cards each embedded with a computer chip; and
• existing measures of monitoring Internet and mobile phone usage.

The computer chips embedded in residence cards will store the person's name, address, work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status, and landlord's phone number. Each chip will also include information about that person's reproductive history, to aid in the enforcement of the Chinese government's one-child policy. Plans are being made to eventually add a person's credit history to the chip, as well as the ability to use the residence card to make subway payments and other small purchases. Police hope to eventually combine the new CCTV surveillance system with the new residence card system to provide enhanced surveillance throughout the city. The CCTV facial recognition technology system and the residence card computer chips are being provided by the same company, China Public Security Technology, a company operated by China-based entrepreneurs but registered in Florida. Not surprisingly, human rights groups have voiced substantial opposition to the Golden Shield Project, claiming that it allows for unlimited government surveillance over people's lives with little or no accountability. For more information, see: http://tinyurl.com/39ko3r Summary by: Andrei Edwards