Journalists target China’s new surveillance system

Surveillance is already common in China. Foreign journalists are regularly followed up by the police when they are on business trips and surveillance cameras are hung in every other corner, and it is estimated that there are more than 400 million in the country. But the new regime in Henan who Reuters Be the first to report, Watch goes one step further and focuses on special groups.

Henan .’s New Monitoring System Description in one document From the Chinese technology company Neusoft. They were the ones who won the purchase of a new monitoring system that Henan, one of China’s largest provinces, approved in July. Then the authorities wrote that they are looking for a regime that targets foreigners and defends China’s sovereignty, security and interests.

This came shortly after foreign journalists who reported on the terrible floods in Henan Province were harassed and subjected to a campaign of persecution on social media. An account with 1.6 million followers asked its followers to report if they had seen a specific foreign journalist reporting on the flood.

From Neusoft . Show It seems that journalists, foreign students, and women who immigrated to China from neighboring countries illegally should be screened. The company’s system includes 3,000 cameras which, through facial recognition, should be able to identify “suspects” and link them directly to regional and national databases with information about them.

Journalists should be divided into groups according to the color scale of the traffic light. Reporters in red are a problem and when they are discovered, a signal is sent to the police who can act immediately. In addition to cameras, warnings will also be issued when “suspects” check into hotels, buy tickets, or travel across borders.

Their social media accounts To check them and track their cell phones. Green journalists are harmless while yellow is something in between. The document states that “suspects must be followed up and verified.”

International students are divided into groups ranging from excellent to unstable. According to the document, how they are ranked is based on daily observations, their test results, the countries they come from, and their discipline.

China has been criticized to undermine press freedom since Xi Jinping took office as the country’s leader in 2012. In Reporters Without Borders’ ranking of press freedom in 2020, China ranks 177th out of 180 countries ranked, after countries such as Syria and Iran.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China has accused the country’s political leadership of using the pandemic to further restrict press freedom. On the one hand, it has become more difficult to obtain visas for journalists, and on the other hand, the number of incidents in which journalists have had problems in the performance of their work in the field has increased.

Read more: In Xinjiang, the Communist regime is watching everything people do