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Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Iris recognition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on video images of one or both of the irises of an individual's eyes, whose complex patterns are unique, stable, and can be seen from some distance. The discriminating powers of all biometric technologies depend on the amount of entropy they are able to encode and use in matching. Iris recognition is exceptional in this regard, enabling the avoidance of "collisions" (False Matches) even in cross-comparisons across massive populations. Its major limitation is that image acquisition from distances greater than a meter or two, or without cooperation, can be very difficult. However, the technology is in development and iris recognition can be accomplished from even up to 10 meters away or in a live camera feed.

Retinal scanning is a different, ocular-based biometric technology that uses the unique patterns on a person's retina blood vessels and is often confused with iris recognition. Iris recognition uses video camera technology with subtle near infrared illumination to acquire images of the detail-rich, intricate structures of the iris which are visible externally. Digital templates encoded from these patterns by mathematical and statistical algorithms allow the identification of an individual or someone pretending to be that individual. Databases of enrolled templates are searched by matcher engines at speeds measured in the millions of templates per second per (single-core) CPU, and with remarkably low false match rates.

At least 1.5 billion persons around the world (including 1.29 billion citizens of India, in the UIDAI / Aadhaar programme as updated on 30 November) have been enrolled in iris recognition systems for national ID, e-government services, benefits distribution, security, and convenience purposes such as passport-free automated border-crossings. A key advantage of iris recognition, besides its speed of matching and its extreme resistance to false matches, is the stability of the iris as an internal and protected, yet externally visible organ of the eye.

In 2023, Pakistan's National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) has launched IRIS for citizen registration/ Civic Management during registration at its offices for the National ID Card. After its initial stage, the eye-recognition verification access will be available for LEAs, banking sectors, etc.

History

Although John Daugman developed and in the 1990s patented the first actual algorithms to perform iris recognition, published the first papers about it and gave the first live demonstrations, the concept behind this invention has a much longer history and today it benefits from many other active scientific contributors. In a 1953 clinical textbook, F.H. Adler wrote: "In fact, the markings of the iris are so distinctive that it has been proposed to use photographs as a means of identification, instead of fingerprints." Adler referred to comments by the British ophthalmologist J.H. Doggart, who in 1949 had written that: "Just as every human being has different fingerprints, so does the minute architecture of the iris exhibit variations in every subject examined. [Its features] represent a series of variable factors whose conceivable permutations and combinations are almost infinite." Later in the 1980s, two American ophthalmologists, L. Flom and Aran Safir managed to patent Adler's and Doggart's conjecture that the iris could serve as a human identifier, but they had no actual algorithm or implementation to perform it and so their patent remained conjecture. The roots of this conjecture stretch back even further: in 1892 the Frenchman A. Bertillon had documented nuances in "Tableau de l'iris humain". Divination of all sorts of things based on iris patterns goes back to ancient Egypt, to Chaldea in Babylonia, and to ancient Greece, as documented in stone inscriptions, painted ceramic artefacts, and the writings of Hippocrates. (Iris divination persists today, as "iridology.")

The core theoretical idea in Daugman's algorithms is that the failure of a test of statistical independence can be a very strong basis for pattern recognition, if there is sufficiently high entropy (enough degrees-of-freedom of random variation) among samples from different classes. In 1994 he patented this basis for iris recognition and its underlying computer vision algorithms for image processing, feature extraction, and matching, and published them in a paper. These algorithms became widely licensed through a series of companies: IriScan (a start-up founded by Flom, Safir, and Daugman), Iridian, Sarnoff, Sensar, LG-Iris, Panasonic, Oki, BI2, IrisGuard, Unisys, Sagem, Enschede, Securimetrics and L-1, now owned by French company Morpho.

With various improvements over the years, these algorithms remain today the basis of all significant public deployments of iris recognition, and they are consistently top performers in NIST tests (implementations submitted by L-1, MorphoTrust and Morpho, for whom Daugman serves as Chief Scientist for Iris Recognition). But research on many aspects of this technology and on alternative methods has exploded, and today there is a rapidly growing academic literature on optics, photonics, sensors, biology, genetics, ergonomics, interfaces, decision theory, coding, compression, protocol, security, mathematical and hardware aspects of this technology.

Most flagship deployments of these algorithms have been at airports, in lieu of passport presentation, and for security screening using watch-lists. In the early years of this century, major deployments began at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport and at ten UK airport terminals allowing frequent travellers to present their iris instead of their passport, in a programme called IRIS: Iris Recognition Immigration System. Similar systems exist along the US / Canada border, and many others. In the United Arab Emirates, all 32 air, land, and seaports deploy these algorithms to screen all persons entering the UAE requiring a visa. Because a large watch-list compiled among GCC States is exhaustively searched each time, the number of iris cross-comparisons climbed to 62 trillion in 10 years. The Government of India has enrolled the iris codes (as well as fingerprints) of more than 1.2 billion citizens in the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) programme for national ID and fraud prevention in entitlements distribution. In a different type of application, iris is one of three biometric identification technologies internationally standardised since 2006 by ICAO for use in e-passports (the other two are fingerprint and face recognition).

Visible vs near infrared imaging

Iris melanin, also known as chromophore, mainly consists of two distinct heterogeneous macromolecules, called eumelanin (brown–black) and pheomelanin (yellow–reddish), whose absorbance at longer wavelengths in the NIR spectrum is negligible. At shorter wavelengths within the VW spectrum, however, these chromophores are excited and can yield rich patterns. Hosseini, et al. provide a comparison between these two imaging modalities. An alternative feature extraction method to encode VW iris images was also introduced, which may offer an alternative approach for multi-modal biometric systems.

Visible wavelength iris image	Near infrared (NIR) version	NIR imaging extracts structure

Visible light reveals rich pigmentation details of an Iris by exciting melanin, the main colouring component in the iris.	Pigmentation of the iris is invisible at longer wavelengths in the NIR spectrum.	Even "dark brown" eyes reveal rich iris texture in the NIR band, and most corneal specular reflections can be blocked.

Operating principle

Iris scanner PIER 2.3 (Portable Iris Enrollment and Recognition) from SecuriMetrics

First the system has to localize the inner and outer boundaries of the iris (pupil and limbus) in an image of an eye. Further subroutines detect and exclude eyelids, eyelashes, and specular reflections that often occlude parts of the iris. The set of pixels containing only the iris, normalized by a rubber-sheet model to compensate for pupil dilation or constriction, is then analyzed to extract a bit pattern encoding the information needed to compare two iris images.

In the case of Daugman's algorithms, a Gabor wavelet transform is used. The result is a set of complex numbers that carry local amplitude and phase information about the iris pattern. In Daugman's algorithms, most amplitude information is discarded, and the 2048 bits representing an iris pattern consist of phase information (complex sign bits of the Gabor wavelet projections). Discarding the amplitude information ensures that the template remains largely unaffected by changes in illumination or camera gain, and contributes to the long-term usability of the biometric template.

For identification (one-to-many template matching) or verification (one-to-one template matching), a template created by imaging an iris is compared to stored templates in a database. If the Hamming distance is below the decision threshold, a positive identification has effectively been made because of the statistical extreme improbability that two different persons could agree by chance ("collide") in so many bits, given the high entropy of iris templates.

Advantages

The iris of the eye has been described as the ideal part of the human body for biometric identification for several reasons:

It is an internal organ that is well protected against damage and wear by a highly transparent and sensitive membrane (the cornea). This distinguishes it from fingerprints, which can be difficult to recognize after years of certain types of manual labor. The iris is mostly flat, and its geometric configuration is only controlled by two complementary muscles (the sphincter pupillae and dilator pupillae) that control the diameter of the pupil. This makes the iris shape far more predictable than, for instance, that of the face.

The iris has a fine texture that—like fingerprints—is determined randomly during embryonic gestation. Like the fingerprint, it is very hard (if not impossible) to prove that the iris is unique. However, there are so many factors that go into the formation of these textures (the iris and fingerprint) that the chance of false matches for either is extremely low. Even genetically identical individuals (and the left and right eyes of the same individual) have completely independent iris textures. An iris scan is similar to taking a photograph and can be performed from about 10 cm to a few meters away. There is no need for the person being identified to touch any equipment that has recently been touched by a stranger, thereby eliminating an objection that has been raised in some cultures against fingerprint scanners, where a finger has to touch a surface, or retinal scanning, where the eye must be brought very close to an eyepiece (like looking into a microscope).

The commercially deployed iris-recognition algorithm, John Daugman's IrisCode, has an unprecedented false match rate (better than 10⁻¹¹ if a Hamming distance threshold of 0.26 is used, meaning that up to 26% of the bits in two IrisCodes are allowed to disagree due to imaging noise, reflections, etc., while still declaring them to be a match). While there are some medical and surgical procedures that can affect the colour and overall shape of the iris, the fine texture remains remarkably stable over many decades. Some iris identifications have succeeded over a period of about 30 years.

Iris recognition works with clear contact lenses, eyeglasses, and non-mirrored sunglasses. The early Sensar technology worked by first finding the face, then the eyes, and then took the Iris images. This was all done using infrared lighting. It is possible to identify someone uniquely in a dark room while they were wearing sunglasses.

Mathematically, iris recognition based upon the original Daugman patents or other similar or related patents define the strongest biometric in the world. Iris recognition will uniquely identify anyone, and easily discerns between identical twins. If a human can verify the process by which the iris images are obtained (at a customs station, entering or even walking by an embassy, as a desktop 2nd factor for authentication, etc.) or through the use of live eye detection (which varies lighting to trigger slight dilation of the pupil and variations across a quick scan which may take several image snapshots) then the integrity of the identification are extremely high.

Shortcomings

Many commercial iris scanners can be easily fooled by a high quality image of an iris or face in place of the real thing. The scanners are often tough to adjust and can become bothersome for multiple people of different heights to use in succession. The accuracy of scanners can be affected by changes in lighting. Iris scanners are significantly more expensive than some other forms of biometrics, as well as password and proximity card security systems.

Iris recognition is very difficult to perform at a distance larger than a few meters and if the person to be identified is not cooperating by holding the head still and looking into the camera. However, several academic institutions and biometric vendors are developing products that claim to be able to identify subjects at distances of up to 10 meters ("Standoff Iris" or "Iris at a Distance" as well as Princeton Identity's "Iris on the Move" for persons walking at speeds up to 1 meter/sec).

As with other photographic biometric technologies, iris recognition is susceptible to poor image quality, with associated failure to enroll rates. As with other identification infrastructure (national residents databases, ID cards, etc.), civil rights activists have voiced concerns that iris-recognition technology might help governments to track individuals beyond their will. Researchers have tricked iris scanners using images generated from digital codes of stored irises. Criminals could exploit this flaw to steal the identities of others.

The first study on surgical patients involved modern cataract surgery and showed that it can change iris texture in such a way that iris pattern recognition is no longer feasible or the probability of falsely rejected subjects is increased.

Security considerations

As with most other biometric identification technology, an important consideration is live-tissue verification. The reliability of any biometric identification depends on ensuring that the signal acquired and compared has actually been recorded from a live body part of the person to be identified and is not a manufactured template. Besides a person's physical characteristics, which includes the eyes, one's voice and handwriting too, are not protected by the Fourth Amendment even though they are all constantly exposed. Many commercially available iris-recognition systems are easily fooled by presenting a high-quality photograph of a face instead of a real face, which makes such devices unsuitable for unsupervised applications, such as door access-control systems. However, this is not the case with all iris recognition algorithms. The problem of live-tissue verification is less of a concern in supervised applications (e.g., immigration control), where a human operator supervises the process of taking the picture.

Methods that have been suggested to provide some defence against the use of fake eyes and irises include changing ambient lighting during the identification (switching on a bright lamp), such that the pupillary reflex can be verified and the iris image be recorded at several different pupil diameters; analysing the 2D spatial frequency spectrum of the iris image for the peaks caused by the printer dither patterns found on commercially available fake-iris contact lenses; analysing the temporal frequency spectrum of the image for the peaks caused by computer displays.

Other methods include using spectral analysis instead of merely monochromatic cameras to distinguish iris tissue from other material; observing the characteristic natural movement of an eyeball (measuring nystagmus, tracking eye while text is read, etc.); testing for retinal retroreflection (red-eye effect) or for reflections from the eye's four optical surfaces (front and back of both cornea and lens) to verify their presence, position and shape. Another proposed^{[citation needed]} method is to use 3D imaging (e.g., stereo cameras) to verify the position and shape of the iris relative to other eye features.

A 2004 report by the German Federal Office for Information Security noted that none of the iris-recognition systems commercially available at the time implemented any live-tissue verification technology. Like any pattern-recognition technology, live-tissue verifiers will have their own false-reject probability and will therefore further reduce the overall probability that a legitimate user is accepted by the sensor.

Deployed applications

United Arab Emirates IrisGuard's Homeland Security Border Control has been operating an expellee tracking system in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 2003, when the UAE launched a national border-crossing security initiative. Today, all of the UAE's land, air and sea ports of entry are equipped with systems. All foreign nationals who need a visit visa to enter the UAE are now processed through iris cameras installed at all primary and auxiliary immigration inspection points. To date, the system has apprehended over 330,000 persons re-entering the UAE with either another name or nationality (which needs a visa), or even fraudulent travel documents.
Bank United - Texas. In 1999 Bank United became the first bank in the world to deploy iris recognition ATMs. These ATMs were manufactured by Diebold using Sensar iris recognition technology. The pilots deployed by Bank United received national television coverage. Coverage and interviews of Sensar executives and Bank United executives included Good Morning America, USA Today, and many other national television shows.

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan - 2009, IrisGuard deployed one of the world's first operational iris-enabled automated teller machine at Cairo Amman Bank, where bank customers can seamlessly withdraw cash from ATM's without a bank card or pin but simply by presenting their eye to the iris recognition camera on the ATM. Since June 2012, IrisGuard is also providing financial inclusion to UNHCR registered Syrian refugees in Jordan on ATM's. The system is designed to facilitate cash-supported interventions that help deliver financial assistance to refugees with speed and dignity while lowering overhead costs and boosting accountability.
Aadhaar began operation in 2011 in India, whose government is enrolling the iris patterns (and other biometrics) of more than one billion residents for the Aadhaar scheme for entitlements distribution, run by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). This programme at its peak was enrolling about one million persons every day, across 36,000 stations operated by 83 agencies. By October 2015, the number of persons enrolled exceeded 926 million, with each new enrollee being compared to all existing ones for de-duplication checks (hence 926 trillion, i.e. 926 million-million, iris cross-comparisons per day). Its purpose is to issue residents a biometrically provable unique entitlement number (Aadhaar) by which benefits may be claimed, and social inclusion enhanced; thus the slogan of UIDAI is: "To give the poor an identity." Iris technology providers must be granted a STQC (Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification) certificate in order to supply iris scanners for the project. By far, there are providers such as: IriTech Inc. (dual iris scanner IriMagic 100BK), Cogent (CIS-202), Iris ID (icam TD 100), Iris Guard (IG-AD-100), etc.
Police forces across America planned to start using BI2 Technologies' mobile MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System) in 2012. The New York City Police Department was the first, with a system installed in Manhattan in the fall of 2010.
Iris recognition technology has been implemented by BioID Technologies SA in Pakistan for UNHCR repatriation project to control aid distribution for Afghan refugees. Refugees are repatriated by UNHCR in cooperation with Government of Pakistan, and they are paid for their travel. To make sure people do not get paid more than once, their irises are scanned, and the system will detect the refugees on next attempt. The database has more than 1.3 million iris code templates and around 4000 registrations per day. The one-to-many iris comparison takes place within 1.5 seconds against 1.3 million iris codes.
In early 2013, United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also installed a new biometrics identity management system (BIMS) by IriTech Inc. for the refugees in the Malawi Camp. During the pilot program, which lasted four weeks, more than 17,000 people enrolled their iris biometric data and had their identities verified. After the successful pilot in Malawi, Thailand was recently chosen to be the first site of the global roll-out. After 5 months, in June 2015, UNHCR has completed its registration for nearly 110,000 Myanmar refugees in Thailand's border camps with the help of the new system.
At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Netherlands, iris recognition has permitted expedited, passport-free border security passing since 2001 through the Privium program.
Canadian Air Transport Security Authority's Restricted Area Identity Card (RAIC) program is the world's first dual-biometric program deployed around major Canadian airports for staff and aircrews to access the restricted areas using separate channels from passengers.
In a number of Canadian airports, as part of the NEXUS program that facilitates entry into the US and Canada for pre-approved, low-risk travellers.
In several Canadian airports, as part of the CANPASS Air program that facilitates entry into Canada for pre-approved, low-risk air travelers.

UK's Iris Recognition Immigration System, which started operating in 2004 but which was closed to new registrations in 2011 and which has been phased out in 2012 and 2013.
Used in 2002 to verify the recognition of the "Afghan Girl" (Sharbat Gula) by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry.
Since at least 2011, Google uses iris scanners to control access to their datacentres.
In 2010, Leon, Mexico, deployed iris scanners in public spaces, that can identify up to fifty people at once.
On May 10, 2011, Hoyos Group demonstrated a device called EyeLock using iris-recognition as an alternative to passwords to log people into password-protected Web sites and applications, like Facebook or eBay.
Princeton Identity has been developing an "Iris on the Move" system and set of products, primarily for U.S. Government clients, capable of identifying 30 people per minute. Most recently, they have specialized in a product where drivers can be identified without needing to leave their vehicle.
M2SYS Technology has deployed their RightPatient™ biometric patient identification system using iris recognition at 11 Novant Health hospitals in the Charlotte and Winston-Salem markets. The RightPatient™ iris biometric patient identification system is designed to capture both the face and the iris pattern of patients and uniquely link them to their electronic medical record.
In March 2015, India's Andhra Pradesh state has launched an iris-based identity management solution developed by IriTech for enhancing pension distribution system. The Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu demonstrated IriShield USB MK2120U device during a launching event of Andhra Pradesh state's iris scanning facility for pension distribution. "The state's decision to use iris technology as a primary method to issue Aadhaar verified DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) will address concerns of total inclusiveness of its residence as well as providing a more accurate and a hygiene solution," says Binod E. Mathai, Director of Biometronic Technology.
On May 28, 2015, Fujitsu released ARROWS NX F-04G the first smartphone with an iris scanner.
On mid 2015, the Kenya Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in order to provide an accurate attendance tracking for all students in classes (roll-call) or school buses (getting on/off tracking) has implemented iris biometric system. The solution includes IriTech's IriShield camera connecting to a low cost Android phone or tablet via USB cable. Iris matching is done on-board of IriShield whose internal gallery can hold up to 500 identities (expandable to 5,000 identities) which is more than enough for most of the schools. The local matching capability is a particular advantage in the school-bus scenario because it does not require wireless/3G communication between the biometric terminal in the bus and a back-end server.
At the end of 2015, Microsoft launched two Lumia phones (Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL) featuring iris scanning as a way to authenticate the user.
In August 2016, Samsung released their first smartphone with iris recognition technology, the Galaxy Note 7, using a front-facing camera and infrared illumination. This technology was provided as an option to unlock the smartphone, and to authenticate the users for different features such as Knox security framework, and to restore the Samsung account password.
May 1, 2017, the first iris-enabled humanitarian blockchain system in the world was deployed in Azraq Refugee camp in Jordan by IrisGuard. More than 10,000 Syrian refugees use only their eyes without any token to pay for their food on WFP Building Blocks (a Private Ethereum Blockchain on AWS) to redeem their assistance. The project expanded to 100,000 refugees in January 2018.
March 2018, World Food Program (WFP) started to implement iris recognition in its food distribution system for the first time in Uganda. The country is hosting approximately 1.4 million refugees and asylum-seekers. It is one of the countries with the highest number of refugees in the world. IriTech's iris scanner BK 2121U is being used to deliver the right food to the right refugees, making sure that they get the food assistance they are entitled to. WFP plans to scale up the system to 180 food distribution sites across Uganda by the end of the year.
Sept 2019, ZainCash started to deploy iris recognition to perform cash distribution for refugees and IDPs for the first time using IrisGuard EyePay mobile phone in Kurdistan, Iraq using ZainCash mobile wallet. The world first mobile iris deployment is carried out with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) IrisGuard and Zain Iraq.
In June 2023, Apple introduced the Vision Pro mixed reality headset with a biometric security authentication technology called Optic ID. According to Apple, Optic ID analyzes a user’s iris through LED light exposure and then compares it with an enrolled Optic ID stored on the device’s Secure Enclave. The system can, reportedly, differntiate between the irises of identical twins.

Iris recognition in television and movies

I Origins (2014), a Hollywood film by writer-director Mike Cahill and winner of the Alfred Sloan Award for best exposition of technology (2014 Sundance Film Festival), uses iris recognition for its core plot. Culminating in India with the UIDAI project to encode and enroll the iris patterns of one billion or more Indian residents by the end of 2015, the film is described as a "science fiction love story incorporating spiritualism and reincarnation", seeking to reconcile science with religious spirit-world beliefs.
Steven Spielberg's 2002 science fiction film Minority Report depicts a society in which what appears to be a form of iris recognition has become daily practice. The principal character undergoes an eye transplant in order to change his identity but continues to use his original eyes to gain access to restricted locations.
In The Island (2005), a clone character played by Ewan McGregor uses his eye to gain access through a security door in the home of his DNA donor.
The Simpsons Movie (2007) features a scene that illustrates the difficulty of image acquisition in iris recognition.
The TV series Numb3rs, features a scene where a robber gets into the CalSci facility by cracking the code assigned to a specific iris.
NCIS uses an iris scanner in the garage, where forensic vehicle investigations are carried out and evidence is stored. There is another scanner at the entrance to MTAC. The sequence of Leroy Jethro Gibbs being verified is shown in the title sequence. The imagery for this sequence has been "enhanced" using special effects. Iris recognition systems do not use the laser like beams shown in the sequence and the light that they do use is near-infrared and nearly invisible.
The 2010 film Red includes a scene where Bruce Willis' character uses a contact lens to pass an iris scan and gain access to CIA headquarters.
The film "Angels and Demons" and also the book featured an iris scanner as the method by which the protagonist broke into CERN and stole one of the antimatter storage modules.
The film "Demolition Man" also had a scene where an eyeball on a stick was used to break into a weapons storage facility.

Mass surveillance in China

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China

Mass surveillance in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the network of monitoring systems used by the Chinese central government to monitor Chinese citizens. It is primarily conducted through the government, although corporate surveillance in connection with the Chinese government has been reported to occur. China monitors its citizens through Internet surveillance, camera surveillance, and through other digital technologies. It has become increasingly widespread and grown in sophistication under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping's administration.

Background

Mass surveillance has significantly expanded under the PRC Cybersecurity Law (2016) and with the help of local companies like Tencent, Dahua Technology, Hikvision, SenseTime, ByteDance, Megvii, Huawei and ZTE, among many others. As of 2019, it is estimated that 200 million monitoring CCTV cameras of the "Skynet" system have been put to use in mainland China, four times the number of surveillance cameras in the United States. By 2020, the number of surveillance cameras in mainland China is expected to reach 626 million. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the implementation of mass surveillance as it has provided a plausible pretext to do so.

History

Origin

Mass surveillance in China emerged in the Maoist era after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Mao invented this mechanism of control that encompassed the entire nation and its people in order to strengthen his power in the newly founded government. In the early years, when technology was relatively undeveloped in China, mass surveillance was accomplished through disseminating information by word of mouth. Chinese people kept a watchful eye on one another and reported inappropriate behaviors that infringed upon the dominant social ideals of the time. According to a publication from 1987, computer and Internet technology spread to China in the late 20th century as a result of the Chinese economic reform.

21st century

In 2005, the Chinese government created a mass surveillance system called Skynet. The government revealed Skynet's existence in 2013, by which time the network included over 20 million cameras. In addition to monitoring the general public, cameras were installed outside mosques in the Xinjiang region, temples in Tibet, and the homes of dissidents.

In 2017, the Chinese government encouraged the use of various mobile phone apps as part of a broader surveillance push. Local regulators launched mobile apps for national security purposes and to allow citizens to report violations.

As of 2018, the most notable surveillance mechanisms were mass camera surveillance on the streets, internet surveillance, and newly invented surveillance methods based on social credit and identity.

As of 2018, the Chinese central government had also adopted facial recognition technology, surveillance drones, robot police, and big data collection targeting online social media platforms to monitor its citizens.

In 2019 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said China's mass surveillance mechanisms and machinery of private communications was "utterly mind-boggling". As of 2019, it was estimated that 200 million monitoring CCTV cameras of the "Skynet" system had been put to use in mainland China, four times as many as the surveillance cameras in the United States. State media in China claim that Skynet is the largest video surveillance system in the world, utilizing facial recognition technology and big data analysis. In 2019, Comparitech reported that 8 out of 10 most monitored cities in the world are in China, with Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shanghai being the world's top 3. In 2019, China supplied surveillance technology to most of the world, and positioned the country in control over the mass surveillance industry.

According to industry researcher IHS Markit, at the end of 2019 there were 770 million surveillance cameras in the world, with approximately 415.8 million of them located in China. If these trends continue, by the end of 2021 there will be about 1 billion in the world and 540 million in China. The government says this prevents crime, but citizens worry that their data and privacy could be compromised. In late October 2020, Deng Yufeng, an artist, used performance art to highlight how difficult it is to dodge the view of security cameras.

Timeline

In 2011, the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission proposed a mobile phone tracking program, to be called the Information Platform of Real-time Citizen Movement, which was ostensibly intended to ease traffic flow on the city's streets.
In the four years up to 2012, 100,000 crimes had reportedly been solved with the aid of surveillance cameras in Guangdong according to officials. However, a critic said that "one of the most important purposes of such a smart surveillance system is to crack down on social unrest triggered by petitioners and dissidents".
In 2013, the government saw the severe atmospheric pollution in Chinese cities as a security threat because the closed-circuit television cameras were rendered useless. In December 2013, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology asked China Telecom, a major landline and mobile telephone company, to implement a real name registration scheme.
In 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology followed with a request to regulate the dissemination of objectionable information over the network. Also in 2014, China used a government-backed brain and emotional surveillance project on an unprecedented scale in factories, public transport, state-owned companies and the military.
In January 2014, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television announced that users who wished to upload videos to Chinese web sites would be required to use their real names. The agency explained that the requirement was meant to prevent vulgar content, base art forms, exaggerated violence and sexual content in internet video having a negative effect on society.
According to an official document released in 2015, the Chinese government aimed to build a nationwide video surveillance network by 2020 to ensure public security, which will be omnipresent, fully networked, working all the time, and fully controllable.(subscription required)
In 2016, China introduced a cybersecurity law requiring internet companies to store all network logs for at least six months and to store all personal data and critical information within mainland China. Also in 2016, China deploys AnBot Police Robot equipped with stun weapon and facial recognition cameras to start patrolling the Shenzhen airport.
In 2018, Chinese law enforcement officials were equipped with facial recognition Smartglasses in order to apprehend criminals, especially drug smugglers. The technology was originally adopted at the 2017 Qingdao International Beer Festival. With its assistance the police claimed to have captured many criminals, including 25 fugitives, 19 drug smugglers, and 37 plagiarists. Also in 2018, Chinese authorities admitted for the first time that they could access WeChat users' deleted messages without their permission. The Chaohu city discipline inspection and supervision commission retrieved a suspect's entire conversation history that had already been deleted in one incident.
In March 2019, China announced a regulation on small video apps to help prevent teenagers' internet addiction disorder. It allows related apps to forcibly trigger "teenager mode" by tracing users' location and analyzing their behavior. It was used in all small video apps by June 2019. In 2019, China announced that the third generation of Resident Identity Cards will be able to trace location. Blood information will also be collected and recorded in the card.
In 2020, Chinese law enforcement officials wore "smart helmets" equipped with AI-powered infrared cameras to detect pedestrians' temperature amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The smart helmets, used by the Chinese police, also have facial recognition capabilities, license plate recognition and the ability to scan QR codes.

Technologies

Internet

The Chinese government has been strengthening its tight control over the Internet and digital communication. There are more than 750 million Internet users in China, and their online actions are strictly regulated. In 2017, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) released a new regulation, which imposed restrictions on the production and distribution of online news. The regulation required all platforms, such as online blogs, forums, websites, and social media apps to be managed by party-sanctioned editorial staff. These staff must obtain approval from the national or local government Internet and information offices and be trained by the central government. As required by the Chinese government, major internet platforms and messaging services in China established elaborate self-censorship mechanisms. Some have hired teams of thousands to police content and invested in powerful artificial intelligence algorithms. In 2019, on the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, China's AI censors cranked up.

Launched in 2011, WeChat, China's most popular messaging app, is under surveillance by Internet police. Any message sent through a WeChat group is monitored by the Chinese technology giant Tencent, the application's operator. All conversations are stored for six months. Even conversations deleted by WeChat users can be retrieved back by Tencent, especially when government authorities seek evidence of a suspect's illegal activities. Authorities have admitted that they can retrieve archived messages once sent on WeChat. Nevertheless, Tencent CEO Ma Huateng stated that his company will not use user chats for big data analysis or invade users' privacy.

In 2017, the Chinese government required all users of Sina Weibo, microblogging site, to register with their real names and identity numbers by September 15 of that year. Weibo users who refused to register their accounts with real names were not able to post, repost, and comment on the site.

At the beginning of 2018, Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent, claimed that WeChat's monthly active users across the globe reached a billion for the first time. Since Tencent cooperates with the central government to implement self-censorship and mass surveillance, it enjoys dominance of its industry in China. Other messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and Line are mostly blocked or even forced out of the Chinese market.

Chinese Internet users have several ways to circumvent censorship. Netizens generally rely on virtual private networks (VPNs) to access blocked websites and messaging apps. However, in July 2017, the Chinese government required telecommunications carriers including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom to block individual access to VPNs by February 1. In August 2017, more than 60 VPNs, such as Astrill and Express VPN, were removed from China's App Store. VPNs that are allowed to be used in China must be approved by state regulators and use the state network infrastructure. Instead of sensitive words which can be censored online, Chinese netizens use puns and Chinese homophones to communicate.

Sex and pornography on the Internet

The Chinese government has been denouncing sex and pornography culture and actively establishes "sex education" for teenagers and high school students in order to prevent them from developing an interest in this culture. As of 2012 the most frequent way Chinese people were accessing otherwise banned sexual material was through the Internet. According to a 2012 article, the number of sex-related pages was increasing at the time. As of 2010 China's Ministry of Public Security had collected intelligence agents from student groups to spy on people's internet activities. When government efforts at porn censorship and surveillance heightened in 2010, instances of erotic activism also emerged online. As of 2012 movies, books, comics, and videos involving sexually sensitive or provocative material were typically banned on Chinese Internet. Web administrators have been seeking sexual information online to remove it as soon as they found it or otherwise censor it.

As of 2018, there have been sections in China's criminal law which explicitly forbid the production, dissemination, or sale of obscene material, for which people can be imprisoned. In the 1980s, there was a campaign against "spiritual pollution", referring to sex-related content. In 2018, a Chinese erotic writer who wrote and sold a gay porn novel named Occupy online was sentenced to a ten-and-a-half year prison sentence. As of 2019, conservative attitudes toward sex talk have remained standard amongst the general public.

Surveillance cameras

By 2018, the Chinese government had installed close to 200 million surveillance cameras across the country, which amounts to approximately one camera per seven citizens. At the same time, approximately 40 million surveillance cameras were active in the United States in 2014, which amounts to approximately one camera per eight citizens; however, these are largely installed by homeowners and stores rather than the government. According to official statistics in 2012, more than 660 of the mainland's 676 cities use surveillance systems. In Guangdong province, 1.1 million cameras were installed in 2012, with plans to increase the number to two million by 2015 at a predicted cost of 12.3 billion yuan. By 2020, the Chinese government expects to integrate private and public cameras, leveraging the country's technological expertise in facial recognition technology to build a nationwide surveillance network.

The facial recognition technology has technological and systematic limitations. For example, a supervisor at an AI firm that provides research support for this technology has stated that the system of activity profile can only look for a maximum of a thousand people in one search. Additionally, the system cannot work continuously for long periods of time, requiring reactivation in cases of extreme need.

The National Information Security Standardization Technical Committee (全国信标委生物特征识别分技术委), which is subordinate to the China Communications Standards Association, started a project in November 2019 to create mandatory standards for facial recognition in China. The project is led by SenseTime and has been assigned to a working group comprising 27 Chinese companies. Also Chinese companies are working to shape United Nations' standards for facial recognition, video surveillance of cities and vehicles, with ZTE, Dahua Technology, China Telecom and others proposing standards to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Other digital technologies

China has highly advanced facial recognition technology. The technology is integrated with others, such as big data and AI, to build a national surveillance and data sharing platform. The smart system is equipped with facial recognition technology to record jaywalkers and non-motor vehicles that break traffic rules. When shopping in the self-service markets of Alibaba and Jingdong, two top Chinese e-commerce companies, customers can use electronic payments through the facial recognition system, which links them with their bank cards. Moreover, Baidu, a Chinese multinational technology company, cooperated with China Southern Airlines to install the facial recognition technology in Nanyang Jiangying Airport, Henan for boarding.

Robot police have been installed in public places such as train stations, museums, and tourist attractions.

Furthermore, the Chinese government uses big data technology in order to analyze and monitor people's online behavior, such as Sesame Credit, which ranks its users based on their online activities along with its previously mentioned functions.

Mainland China

Social credit system

In connection with camera surveillance, the Chinese government was believed to be developing a social credit system that gives their citizens a numerical score by analyzing their social behaviors and collecting fiscal and government data, and accordingly punishing and rewarding them with that score. However, new reports state that such information is false, with the social credit system being low-tech, with no unified score for citizens and the government mainly focusing on fraudulent and unethical businesses who renege on debt repayments, financial agreements or fail to honor legal contracts.

Smart cities

Smart cities began rolling out in 2003 and China is host to hundreds of smart city pilot programs aiming to measure, track and analyse data from every aspect of city life including air quality, traffic flow, congestion and waste water disposal. A key component of smart cities includes the installation of public security cameras in order to more effectively deter crime and anti-social behaviour, however critics have stated the projects are also used as a form of social control in order to target dissidents and crackdown on any potential unrest.

Skynet

Skynet is an interlinked system of facial recognition software enabled surveillance cameras currently in operation in 16 Chinese provinces used to help public security organs crack down on crime and identify citizens in public through cross reference with criminal and national identity databases held by the Ministry of Public Security and the National Citizen Identity Information Center (NCIIC). According to CCP-owned tabloid Global Times, the system is fast enough to scan the entire population of the People's Republic of China in under a second and allegedly has an accuracy rate of 99.8%

Police cloud

In 2020, reporting by Human Rights Watch indicated that public security bureaus (PSB's) across the country began implementing "Police Cloud" systems in order to aggregate data from healthcare, social media activity and internet browsing activity, reportedly to track and predict the activities of activists, dissidents, and ethnic minorities, including those alleged to be in possession of "extreme thoughts". The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission plans to construct a network of police clouds in every provincial and municipal public security bureau, eventually interlinking them together in one unified national police cloud system.

The police cloud system aims to integrate information from all available sources to public security bureaus including but not limited to: residential addresses, family relations, birth control information, religious affiliations, hotel, flight records, train records, biometrics, CCTV footage, mail delivery information and information shared across from other government departments. Reporting by Human Rights Watch also revealed PSB's also intended to purchase data such as navigation data on the internet (browsing histories) and the logistical purchase and transaction records of major e-commerce companies from third party brokers in order to more effective predict crime while crack down and target any potential dissent.

Sharp eyes project

Sharp eyes (Chinese: 锐眼工程; pinyin: Ruì yǎn gōngchéng) is a project which aims to surveil a hundred percent of public space using surveillance in China by 2020, according to the 13th Five Year Plan released in 2016. Although it is questionable whether such targets outlined in the plan have been achieved, the 14th Five Year Plan continues with the project, instructing public security organs to: "closely guard against, and crack down on, the infiltration, sabotage, subversion and separatist activities by hostile forces"

Digital RMB

Digital RMB or digital Yuan is a centralised digital currency issued by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) in order to facilitate transactions as a supplement and possible eventual replacement of a physical national currency. As of 2021, the project is still pilot stage rolling out across select Chinese cities. Widespread adoption would theoretically allow authorities to see economic activity in real time in addition to all financial transactions which occur in an economy leading to greater surveillance and ability to maintain social control using techniques such as restricting transactions of certain entities or groups, optimising surveillance to the individual level.

Public records

The public records or Dang'an (simplified Chinese: 档案; traditional Chinese: 檔案; pinyin: dàng'àn) literally: "archived record/file". Is a permanent dossier or archival system that records the "performance and attitudes" of citizens of mainland China. Together with the current system of household registration, the Hukou system, it has been an important mechanism of social control. The contents of the file include physical characteristics, employment records, photograph, appraisals by supervisors and peers, academic reports from primary school to university, professional credentials, criminal convictions or administrative penalties, club/society memberships, employment records and political history such as membership in the Communist Youth League and or party membership. If an individual is a party member, the file will also include membership assessments of political integrity and performance of duties. Death certificate and eulogy may also be placed in file. In 2001, a human rights group claimed Public Security Bureaus located throughout the country were in the process of digitising hundreds of millions of dang'an. The dang'an system is the precursor or foundation of the social credit system in that data stored within dossiers are pulled into a broader pool of data and amalgamated together with data pulled from other sources in order to provide a more complete picture of an individual's movements, actions and life.

Resident Identity Card

All Chinese citizens are required to hold a national identity card from the age of 16. The resident ID card (Chinese: 居民身份证; pinyin: Jūmín shēnfèn zhèng) acts as a national ID card and contains basic identifying information such as photograph, residential address, gender, ethnicity, date of birth and fingerprints of both thumbs embedded on an IC chip. Card information is stored within the National Population Basic Information Database (Chinese: 全国人口基本信息数据库; pinyin: Quánguó rénkǒu jīběn xìnxī shùjùkù) administered by the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. The resident ID card acts as the primary form of identification for citizens within China and is required for almost all basic government services and administrative tasks in everyday life. In March 2022, Chinese premier Li Keqiang stated that the government was planning the roll out of digital national ID cards with national rollout scheduled for an unspecified date.

Household registration

Household registration or Hukou (Chinese: 户口; pinyin: Hùkǒu) has been in existence since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and since imperial times. The "Hukou" or family registration system lists the members of an individual's immediate family and any extended relatives which may be connected to the individual in addition to births, deaths, marriages, divorces and relocations and other movements.

Hukou is divided into either agricultural or urban status and acts as a form of social control through restricting the area in which an individual and his or her children can obtain access to education, healthcare, housing, employment and or other government services. The system also acts as a convenient method for the state to exert collective punishment i.e. individuals who commit or engage in acts of dissent may have their family arrested or detained for leverage.

In recent years Hukou information has been utilised extensively to suppress dissent both at home and abroad in Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, specifically operation Fox Hunt in which suspects accused of corruption in China are coerced into returning to home to face charges for fear of consequences which may befall their family and or extended relatives residing in country. The Ministry of Public Security manages the National Basic Population Information Database (NBPIB) as part of the Golden Shield Project which contains digitised Hukou information in addition to information on past travels and criminal history. The database contains information on 96% of the Chinese population.

Household registration is governed by the "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Household Registration" issued in 1958 which states:

Article 2: All citizens of the People's Republic of China shall perform household registration.
Article 3 The household registration work shall be in charge of the public security organs at all levels.
Cities and towns with public security police stations shall be under the jurisdiction of public security police stations; townships and towns without public security stations shall be under the jurisdiction of townships and towns. The township and township people's committees and police stations are the household registration authorities.
— Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Household Registration (1958), Chapter I.

Residency registration

In accordance with the Entry Exit Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, all persons entering the country or upon moving to each new region within China must register their residency by obtaining a temporary residence permit at the nearest Public Security Bureau or PSB within 24 hours of arrival. Failure to do so may result in fines of up to 2,000 RMB or detention.

Hotels hosting the stay of foreigners or non-PRC nationals are obligated to report and upload information to platforms stipulated by the PSB's in each respective area. The regulation is reminiscent of soviet practice in that it is designed to closely surveil all foreign nationals in the event they may be potential spies which pose a risk to national security in addition to being able to quickly respond or detain anyone who may be in violation of laws or disrupt public order.

Article 38: Foreigners who reside in China shall, within the prescribed time limit, submit foreigners' residence permits to public security organs under local people's governments at or above the county level in the places of residence for examination.
Article 39: Where foreigners stay in hotels in China, the hotels shall register their accommodation in accordance with the regulations on the public security administration of the hotel industry, and submit foreigners' accommodation registration information to the public security organs in the places where the hotels are located.
For foreigners who reside or stay in domiciles other than hotels, they or the persons who accommodate them shall, within 24 hours after the foreigners' arrival, go through the registration formalities with the public security organs in the places of residence.
— Entry Exit Administration Law of the People's Republic of China (2013), Chapter IV (Section I)

Grid-based social management

On July 11, 2020, state media outlet Xinhua announced that local party committees and officials including neighbourhood management committees would be empowered to engage in law enforcement activities and hand out administrative punishments of residents within their perimeters. According to a high level opinion document: "[Officials at] township, village and neighbourhood [level] shall be given administrative law enforcement powers...while existing law enforcement powers and resources shall be integrated".

According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up city neighbourhoods into a grid pattern containing 15-20 households per square, with each grid appointed a designated monitor who reports back on residents' affairs to local party committees. According to reporting by RFA the task of a "grid monitor" for a neighbourhood committee is to: "fully understand the residents of their grid, including exactly who lives where, which organizations they belong to, and the sort of lives they lead".

The devolvement of law enforcement powers down to the county and village levels has been described as "unprecedented" with potential to lead to "major turmoil" and social unrest due to the fact village and local party cadres lack the ability or necessary legal knowledge to enforce laws.

Real name registration

Since all citizens of China are required to carry a national ID card, the resident ID card is the only acceptable form of government issued identification for a variety of services including the purchase of SIM cards, plane tickets, high speed train tickets, banking, financial services, education and healthcare. Further, real name registration is mandatory for internet access in China and as of December 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology required that all individuals wishing to purchase SIM cards in China submit to facial recognition scans in order to tie mobile phone numbers, text messaging and internet browsing activity to real name identities.

The Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China passed in 2017 by the Standing Committee of the National Peoples's Congress (NPCSC) mandates that providers of instant messaging services, telecommunications and internet service providers companies as well as domain name registration providers verify the real ID of users prior to provision of service.

Article 24: Network operators handling network access and domain name registration services for users, handling stationary or mobile phone network access, or providing users with information publication or instant messaging services, shall require users to provide real identity information when signing agreements with users or confirming the provision of services. Where users do not provide real identity information, network operators must not provide them with relevant services.
— Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (2017), Chapter III.

Internet browsing history

As a result of the passage of the cybersecurity law, network operators (widely believed to refer to internet service providers) are required to maintain unspecified "network logs" for at least 6 months. Although the exact definition of what constitute network logs remains unclear, it has been interpreted by Jones Day and other international law firms to refer to web logs or internet browsing history.

National Citizen Identity Information Centre (NCIIC)

In 2007, the state-run China Internet Information Center reported that the world's largest ID database hosting over 1.3 billion entries was complete. NCIIC or the National Citizen Identity Information Center is located in Beijing and is the backbone of the National ID card system used throughout China by banking, financial services, healthcare, education and various government agencies, the law enforcement apparatus, internet service providers and social media platforms to verify the real ID information of users and customers who wish to use their services.

Biometrics Collection and Entry Exit Administration Law of the People's Republic of China

From 8 February 2021, Chinese embassies started requiring the submission of biometrics including photographs and the fingerprints from all 10 fingers as a pre-requisite for visa applications.

Since February 2017, the Ministry of Public Security in conjunction with its child agency China Immigration Inspection (CII) have required all foreign nationals entering the People's Republic of China to submit biometric information including an in person facial scan and as well as fingerprints from all 10 fingers as a national security measure.

Legislative basis is provided by article 7 of the Entry Exit Administration Law of the People's Republic of China and since implementation, the scheme has already resulted in the cancellation of some covert dual citizenship holders attempting to obtain or renew Chinese passports (Chinese nationality law does not allow for dual citizenship).

Article 7: Upon approval by the State Council, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs may, on the basis of the need for exit/entry administration, set forth regulations on the collection and keep of fingerprints and other biometric identification information of the persons who exit or enter China.
— Entry Exit Administration Law of the People's Republic of China (2013), Chapter I.

Current biometrics scanning equipment used by China Immigration Inspection is manufactured by Chinese company Max Vision.

Facial recognition scanners and security checks in subway stations

Following an attack at the Kunming railway station in Southern China, the Chinese government began mandating security screening prior to entrance at metro and train stations across China. In 2021 four subway stations in Guangzhou began in the southern city of Guangzhou began allowing people to use a biometric security gate instead of going through a security check by station staff. In 2019, the South China Morning Post reported that Beijing metro would also begin sorting passengers using facial recognition based on information pulled from the social credit system and criminal offending databases. Commuters who exhibited anti-social behaviour or had previous bad credit scores would also be penalised under the system.

Tibet and Xinjiang

In mainland China, one of the most important ongoing projects is a Skynet project with an installation of more than 200 million video surveillance cameras. The real-time pedestrian tracking and recognition system can precisely identify people's clothing, gender, and age, as well as both motor and non-motor vehicles. Additionally, the surveillance system can instantly match a person's image with their personal identification and information. Golden Shield is a giant mechanism of censorship and surveillance that blocks tens of thousands of websites that may present negative reports about the CCP's narrative and control.

Tibet

The Chinese government sent groups of cadres to Tibetan villages as part of the Benefit the Masses campaign in 2012. The purpose of the campaign was to improve service and living quality in Tibet and to educate the locals about the importance of social stability and adherence to the CCP. The local people were also supervised in order to prevent uprisings from taking place.

In Tibet, users of mobile phones and the Internet must identify themselves by name. The government reported that the program had reached full realization in June 2013. An official said that "the real-name registration is conducive to protecting citizens' personal information and curbing the spread of detrimental information".

In 2018, during the Saga Dawa, the holy fourth month for Tibetan Buddhists, the government enforced stricter rules in Lhasa, according to the Global Times. People were also discouraged from engaging in religious practices in this month. When they did, they were supervised closely.

As a method of protesting, some Tibetans have engaged in immolation, which is a tradition of protest against Chinese control that was first practiced in the mid-20th century.

Xinjiang

In Xinjiang and especially its capital city, Ürümqi, there are security checkpoints and identification stations almost everywhere. The Uyghurs are among those that fall under the “focus personnel” category and is subjected to intense surveillance. People need to show their ID cards and have their faces scanned by cameras at a security station before entering a supermarket, a hotel, a train station, a highway station, or other public place. The ratio of police officers stationed in Xinjiang to population is higher than elsewhere. This strict enforcement of security checks is partly a response to the separatist movement in 2009 associated with Uyghurs. Additionally, the cameras on streets are denser there than elsewhere, numbering 40,000. The information collected by the cameras is matched with individual profiles, which include previously collected biometric data, such as DNA samples and voice samples. People are rated on a level of trustworthiness based on their profiles, which also takes into account their familial relations and social connections. These levels include "trustworthy", "average", and "untrustworthy". The data is fed into the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (Chinese: 一体化联合作战平台), an AI-powered system used for mass surveillance which generates lists of suspects for detention.

Xinjiang residents, especially those from the Uyghur ethnic group, are not allowed to practice certain religious acts. They are also more actively and strictly monitored by surveillance apps, voice printing, and facial recognition cameras. Since 2017, the government has set up internment camps in Xinjiang to force citizens into compliance. People in the re-education camps are usually closely watched by guards and are not allowed to contact others outside the facilities, including family members and other close relations. They learn about Mandarin Chinese characters and the rules that they need to follow in those camps as well as outside once they leave.

The security spending in Xinjiang ballooned in 2017, witnessing an increase of 90% to $8.52 billion as compared to that in 2016. Since at least 2017, Chinese police have forced Uyghurs in Xinjiang to install the Jingwang Weishi app on their phones, allowing for remote monitoring of the phones' contents.

That same year, Chinese drone manufacturer DJI signed a cooperation agreement with local police to provide surveillance drones in support of their operations. In 2018, China deployed a flock of drones disguised to look like birds to step up surveillance levels in region.

The Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP, 一体化联合作战平台), used by the government to monitor the population, particularly Uyghurs, was reported by The Washington Post and Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 2018. The platform gathers biometrics, including DNA samples, to track individuals in Xinjiang.

In November 2019, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the China Cables, consisting of six documents, an "operations manual" for running the camps and detailed use of predictive policing and AI to target people and regulate life inside the camps.

In late 2020, HRW obtained a list of 2000 names of Uyghur prisoners held in the Aksu prefecture leaked from IJOP. The list showed that reasons for imprisonment included religious practice such as studying the Koran without state permission or having a long beard, using software or online services such as a VPN, travelling outside of Aksu, switching off one's phone repeatedly, or having "extremist thoughts". The leaked IJOP list provided detailed, day-to-day evidence on the workings of the Xinjiang re-education camps that The Guardian described as "unprecedented". An earlier list, the Karakax (or Qaraqash) list, leaked in February 2020, showed decision-making about retaining or releasing detainees.

In 2023, IPVM found that all foreign journalists traveling to Xinjiang are tracked via Alibaba's police cloud.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, a pro-democracy campaign, aims to demand full democracy so that Hong Kong's citizens can have the right to nominate and elect the head of the Hong Kong government. However, key pro-democracy figures, such as some lawmakers, academics, and political activists, are under the central government's surveillance. Some activists engaged in the umbrella movement have been intimidated or arrested by policemen. News reports, social media posts, and images about Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests are censored in mainland China.

Internet users and civil society groups in Hong Kong have been facing cyber-attacks and debated threats to privacy online during the past few years. In June 2014, a white paper on the "one country, two systems" agreement issued by Beijing articulated that the central government has comprehensive jurisdiction over Hong Kong and that the power to run local affairs is authorized by the central government.

Hong Kong Identity Card

Like in mainland China, all residents of Hong Kong are required to hold an IC or identity card, known as the Hong Kong Identity Card or HKID issued by the immigration department in accordance with the Registration of Persons Ordinance (Cap. 177) stating that: "all residents of age 11 or above who are living in Hong Kong for longer than 180 days must, within 30 days of either reaching the age of 11 or arriving in Hong Kong, register for an HKID".

In addition to containing standard biographical information such as name, age and sex, the card contains a chip which contains the fingerprint scans of two thumbprints of the holder.

National ID's are a characteristic of surveillance states in that the ID is part of the "daily papers" individuals are required to carry on them at all times in order to access government, banking or other financial and social services. Holders of HKID's can pass through customs checkpoints faster at ports of entry throughout the city by scanning their fingerprints when entering.

National Security Law

Since the passage of the Hong Kong national security law, or 'Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region', Hong Kong has been the target of creeping authoritarianism from mainland Chinese government through a variety of methods including stacking the legislative council with pro-Beijing candidates, arrest of opposition leaders and disqualification of candidates of the legislative council considered insufficiently "patriotic". The law also created the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region otherwise known as the "Central People's Government National Security Office" (CPGNSO), an agency which allows mainland law enforcement officers and agents to operate on Hong Kong jurisdiction without permission from Hong Kong police or the HKSAR government.

On November 11, 2020, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) adopted a decision disqualifying Hong Kong legislators who "publicize or support independence", "seek foreign interference", or pursue "other activities that endanger national security". The "reforms" as referred to by Beijing, paved the way for the insertion of loyalists and subsequent proposal and passage of series of laws considered authoritarian including on patriotic education, sim card registration and laws preventing the doxing of police officers of the HKPF.

Anti-Doxing Law

On July 21, 2021, the Hong Kong Legislative Council began talks to implement "anti-doxing" laws in response to the 2019-pro democracy protests in which members of the Hong Kong Police Force and certain judges were doxed or had their personal information such as names, addresses, names of family members, details of children and schools attended leaked to the public in retribution for violence or police brutality encountered during the course of the protests. Critics of the legislation, including human rights and tech industry groups stated that the measures could be used to protect those in power and target civil society. Under the proposed laws, violators could face fines of up to HK$1 million ($128,736) and five years in prison.

The law also empowers the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data to access electronic devices without warrant. In response Asia Internet Coalition an advocacy group consisting of Google, Facebook and Twitter, warned in a June 25 letter to the commissioner that tech companies could stop offering their services in Hong Kong if changes were enacted since "the measures were "not aligned with global norms and trends", and that any legislation that could curb freedom of speech "must be built upon principles of necessity and proportionality".

SIM Card Registration (Telecommunications Ordinance Amendment)

On June 2, 2021, the cabinet body of Hong Kong known as the Executive Council or "ExCo" announced from March 2022, that all purchasers of SIM cards would be required to provide their identity card number, date of birth, and a copy of their identification document when purchasing a SIM Card in Hong Kong. Edward Yau, the Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development described the amendment as an: "overdue move to fight crime". Yau also claimed that among the 100,000 submissions received during consultation, 70 percent supported the arrangements.

According to the details of the legislation, from September 1, operators will be given 180 days to implement a system to store customers' registration details and from March 1, 2022, users would be given 360 days to register any pre-paid sim cards already in circulation. Under new arrangements, law enforcement agencies will be allowed access to information without a warrant in vaguely defined: "urgent and exceptional circumstances".

The move coincided closely with the passage of the national security law and reflects parallel arrangements in mainland China where users are also required to register new SIM cards using real name identification. The move marks increasing efforts by the CCP to assert its control over Hong Kong through increased surveillance and the intrusion of digital authoritarianism.

Dan McDevitt, manager of website Greatfire.org wrote on Nikkei Asia in response to the new regulations that Beijing had "brought its repressive surveillance tools to Hong Kong", gradually tightening control over the internet and eroding the privacy, forums for open communication and civil society post enactment of the national security law. Anyone found guilty of faking registration details under the ordinance liable to be jailed for 14 years.

Suspension of data requests from Hong Kong police

On July 6, 2020, social media companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter suspended processing requests for user data from Hong Kong Law Enforcement agencies out of fear the data could be used to engage suppression of political dissent and targeting of peaceful participants of the protests, owing to the overly broad interpretations of the law in respect to definitions of the incitement of "subversion, collusion, espionage" and "secession". In response to the enactment of the law, TikTok also stated that it would exit the Hong Kong market in the days following the promulgation of the national security law.

Facial recognition checkpoints at ports of entry

Since 2017, China Immigration Inspection and the Ministry of Public Security has required submission of biometrics before entering the territory of the People's Republic of China. Fingerprints from all 10 fingers and a photograph of a person's face is also required when crossing into mainland China from any immigration control points.

Over the years China has been building a large facial recognition databases for the purposes of targeting and suppressing dissent in addition to enhancing border control through the placement of entry and exit bans on corruption suspects, dissidents and targets of criminal investigations or persons of interest to the ruling CCP.

Residents of Hong Kong have expressed fear of being unable to leave upon entering mainland China and since the anti-extradition bill and pro democracy protests of 2019, certain residents suspected of involvement in political activism and protests have been blacklisted and barred from entry into mainland China.

Since 2018, HKIA (Hong Kong International Airport) has also operated facial recognition and biometric smart-gates to assist passengers to pass through security and clear customs faster. Hong Kong residents are eligible for accelerated entry into Hong Kong by scanning their fingerprints and ID cards when entering Hong Kong. The machine works by cross matching information contained on the card-chip to that of the holder in order to verify the identity of the holder.

Public security cameras

According to reports by South China Morning Post, the city is home to some 50,000 security cameras, with some 20,000 operated by the Housing Authority of Hong Kong. It is not known whether the cameras contain facial recognition capabilities.

Installation of Cameras in Classrooms

In March 2020, pro-Beijing legislators of the Hong Kong Legislative Council suggested that cameras be installed in classrooms in order to monitor the contents of lectures being delivered to students in addition to monitoring the teachers themselves.

Application of Chinese law within Hong Kong

West Kowloon Station

In June 2021, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal upheld the constitutional status of a controversial arrangement to allow the application of mainland Chinese law of the West Kowloon Terminus of the cross-border high speed rail way between the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong and the territory of the People's Republic of China (mainland China).

The plan would mean that mainland law enforcement officials from MPS or the Ministry of Public Security and the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau would be able to enforce Chinese law inside the station and potentially arrest any dissidents of the ruling CCP when they cross over into mainland China at the checkpoint.

Critics described the arrangement as infringing upon Hong Kong's autonomy and being in violation of the Hong Kong Basic Law. Since 2007, a similar arrangement has operated at the border where Hong Kong jurisdiction overlaps with areas of the Shenzhen Bay Port on the mainland.

Earlier in 2019, Simon Cheng an investment officer at the British Consulate General in Hong Kong was arrested by public security officers at the station after returning from a business trip in Shenzhen for allegedly soliciting prostitution. Cheng was a vocal activist and supporter of the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong-Zhuhai Macau Bridge

On 15 December 2019, the Hong Kong Immigration department received reports that a man had apparently disappeared while crossing the Hong Kong-Zhuhai Macau Bridge to Macau.

The bridge, since constructed in 2018 had hosted a Chinese police checkpoint staffed by officers from the mainland China Immigration Inspection agency of the Ministry of Public Security. Upon further investigation it was revealed the man had been detained by Chinese police while on his way to Macau on the Zhuhai-Macau Port Artificial Island (a section of the bridge mid-way leading into an underwater tunnel).

Reports by the Hong Kong Free Press revealed that officers from Guangdong Public Security Bureau had set up a checkpoint consisting of X-ray machines and facial recognition scanners ahead of an up-coming visit to Macau by CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, which had picked up the man as he crossed the checkpoint into Macau. Since the bridge was built by the central government, Beijing exercises jurisdictional authority over it, on the basis that the Zhuhai-Macau Port Artificial Island is part of Chinese territory.

This expansive interpretation of what is considered Chinese territory reflects increasing efforts under CCP general secretary Xi Jinping's administration to increase Chinese soft power while enhancing the extraterritorial reach of its laws through actions such as the stationing of security agents outside of territories where they normally operate.

Taiwan

The "SkyNet" technology used by the Chinese government to monitor the population through pervasive cameras covers everyone appearing under the camera network, while it does not affect Taiwan. Meanwhile, Taiwanese officials have informed Taiwanese people living in mainland China about the increasing prevalence of surveillance on their activities. This has become a heightened concern since China started offering residence cards and a full national status to people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau who were living in the mainland. As a result of Beijing's initiative, individuals such as students and workers can apply for a residence permit after residing in mainland China for six months. This policy extends social service and medical benefits to them, who now enjoy those services in the same way as other Chinese citizens. Taiwanese authorities are worried about surveillance on the Taiwanese because of the residence cards issued to them, which provide their identities to the Chinese government and subject them to the same surveillance regime composed of cameras, facial recognition technology, and social credit.

Mainland travel permit

The PRC institutes a policy of mainland travel permits for "Taiwanese residents" or "Taiwanese compatriots". Since the People's Republic of China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and does not officially recognise Taiwanese passports, all Taiwanese residents are required to apply for a mainland travel permit for Taiwan residents in order to travel to mainland China for the purposes of work, study or otherwise. As part of the application process, personal information such as biometrics, fingerprints, photograph and date of birth are collected.

Spending estimates

In 2010, domestic security expenditure exceeded spending on external defense for the first time. By 2016, domestic security spending surpassed external defense by 13%.

In 2017, China's spending on domestic security was estimated to be US$197 billion, excluding spending on security-related urban management and surveillance technology initiatives. In the same year, the central government's total public security spending in Xinjiang reached 57.95 billion RMB, the equivalent of US$9.16 billion, which is ten times the spending of the previous decade.

In 2018, China spent the equivalent of US$20 billion purchasing closed-circuit television cameras and other surveillance equipment. This large number of purchases reaches half the size of the global market's, according to an estimate reported in a state newspaper.

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Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Iris recognition

History

Visible vs near infrared imaging

Operating principle

Advantages

Shortcomings

Security considerations

Deployed applications

Iris recognition in television and movies

Mass surveillance in China

Background

History

Origin

21st century

Timeline

Technologies

Internet

Sex and pornography on the Internet

Surveillance cameras

Other digital technologies

Mainland China

Social credit system

Smart cities

Skynet

Police cloud

Sharp eyes project

Digital RMB

Public records

Resident Identity Card

Household registration

Residency registration

Grid-based social management

Real name registration

Internet browsing history

National Citizen Identity Information Centre (NCIIC)

Biometrics Collection and Entry Exit Administration Law of the People's Republic of China

Facial recognition scanners and security checks in subway stations

Tibet and Xinjiang

Tibet

Xinjiang

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Identity Card

National Security Law

Anti-Doxing Law

SIM Card Registration (Telecommunications Ordinance Amendment)

Suspension of data requests from Hong Kong police

Facial recognition checkpoints at ports of entry

Public security cameras

Installation of Cameras in Classrooms

Application of Chinese law within Hong Kong

West Kowloon Station

Hong Kong-Zhuhai Macau Bridge

Taiwan

Mainland travel permit

Spending estimates

Lie point symmetry