Electronic surveillance

China is installing surveillance cameras outside people's front doors ... and sometimes inside their homes

The morning after Ian Lahiffe returned to Beijing, he found a surveillance camera being mounted on the wall outside his apartment door. Its lens was pointing right at him.

After a trip to southern China, the 34-year-old Irish expat and his family were starting their two-week home quarantine, a mandatory measure enforced by the Beijing government to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

He said he opened the door as the camera was being installed, without warning.

"(Having a camera outside your door is) an incredible erosion of privacy," said Lahiffe. "It just seems to be a massive data grab. And I don't know how much of it is actually legal."