Electronic surveillance

'The Entire System Is Designed to Suppress Us.' What the Chinese Surveillance State Means for the Rest of the World

Every move in the city is seemingly captured digitally. Cameras perch over sidewalks, hover across busy intersections and swivel above shopping districts. But Chongqing is by no means unique. Eight of the top 10 most surveilled cities in the world are in China, according to Comparitech, as the world’s No. 2 economy rolls out an unparalleled system of social control. Facial–recognition software is used to access office buildings, snare criminals and even shame jaywalkers at busy intersections. China today is a harbinger of what society looks like when surveillance proliferates unchecked.

But while few nations have embraced surveillance the way China has, it is far from alone. Surveillance has become an everyday part of life in most developed societies, aided by an explosion in AI–powered facial–recognition technology. Last year, London police made their first arrest based on facial recognition by cross–referencing photos of pedestrians in tourist hot spots with a database of known felons. A few months earlier, a trial of facial–recognition software by police in New Delhi reportedly recognized 3,000 missing children in just four days. In August, a wanted drug trafficker was captured in Brazil after facial-recognition software spotted him at a subway station. The technology is widespread in the U.S. too. It has aided in the arrest of alleged credit-card swindlers in Colorado and a suspected rapist in Pennsylvania.