China's coronavirus campaign offers glimpse into surveillance system

[snoop1130]

China's coronavirus campaign offers glimpse into surveillance system

By Cate Cadell

 

FILE PHOTO: A CCTV security surveillance camera overlooks a street as people walk following the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Beijing, China May 11, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - The coronavirus outbreak in China has given unprecedented glimpses into how an extensive system of surveillance cameras works, as monitoring stations are rebranded epidemic “war rooms” helping to check people’s movements and stifle the disease.

 

China is trying to build one of the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technology networks, with hundreds of millions of cameras in public places and increasing use of techniques such as smartphone monitoring and facial recognition.

 

This year, cities and villages across the country have used the system for what the government has labelled “an all-out people’s war on coronavirus”.

 

While authorities have primarily used mobile location data and ID-linked tracing apps to flag people coming back from abroad for quarantine, the camera surveillance system has played a crucial role, according to officials, state media and residents.

 

The network has been used to trace the contacts of people confirmed as infected with the virus, and to punish businesses and individuals flouting restrictions.

 

“This is a war situation,” said a civil servant surnamed Wang in Tianjin city, who was involved in tracing thousands of people linked to a coronavirus cluster at a department store.

 

“We must adopt war-time thinking.”

 

Despite the hi-tech ambitions of the system, it is heavily dependent on a lot of people watching footage on screens.

 

Known as “grid members”, they sit in monitoring rooms or squint over smart-phone feeds from the networks of cameras.

 

“This type of surveillance is far more human driven than it is tech driven, said James Leibold, associate Professor at Australia’s La Trobe University, who researched similar systems in China’s far-west Xinjiang.

 

‘WARTIME RESTRICTIONS’

 

State media, officials and local governments have given accounts of the system in action in the campaign against the coronavirus.

 

In Donghan village in Hubei, the province where the coronavirus emerged late last year, grid member Liu Ganhe saw six villagers gathering without masks, so he called the authorities.

 

“Village cadres rushed to the scene to disperse the crowd and educate the people,” media said, praising the “wartime restrictions” the system was able to enforce.

 

The county’s system cost 40 million yuan ($5.6 million) and included more than 4,400 cameras, it said.

 

Grid member He Haijun spotted villagers getting together in Yongzhou county in Hunan province, so he shouted at them through a village loudspeaker, state media reported.

 

“Within two minutes, the villagers returned to their homes,” it reported.

 

The use of loudspeakers to break up gatherings was something that residents of four villages in northeast China confirmed to Reuters.

 

Authorities have also installed cameras outside the homes of people coming from the virus hot spot of Hubei and from overseas.

 

In Xiangtan, another Hunan city, the system was used to locate a man found with a high temperature at a shopping centre who slipped away on a motor bike, state media reported.

 

Officials tracked him using cameras and sent public security officers to admonish him.

 

State media has published pictures of officials watching multiple screens in police stations. Others show volunteer staff scouring footage and sharing clips on messaging apps.

 

‘IT WORKS’

 

While the surveillance may be rudimentary in places, public knowledge of the system likely helps with enforcement.

 

“It does carry this perception that someone is watching you, and that does moderate people’s behaviour and shifts people’s thinking over time,” said Leibold.

 

“I think that is going to be one of the long-term lessons from COVID, that it actually works.”

 

Details shared by residents and officials suggest machine learning and facial recognition also played a role in big cities.

 

In Tianjin, 100 km (62 miles) from Beijing, officials went door-to-door tracing people linked to the department store outbreak in late February, using data from surveillance footage, officials and residents told Reuters.

 

Officials determined the exact time that infected shop workers were exposed to customers and then traced people captured in footage around the store at the time.

 

Local authority equipment procurement documents, available on various web sites and collected by Reuters, give details of the area’s surveillance system that includes facial recognition technology that can trace a person’s movement for up to 90 days.

 

More than 9,000 people were quarantined.

 

“The cadres discovered them one-by-one through scans made by public security cameras,” the Tianjin civil servant told Reuters.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-05-26

 

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[kotsak]

To paraphrase a tagline used in movie trailers in the past.. "coming soon to a neighbourhood near you"

 

 

[candide]

It's been very easy for China to fight the CV epidemic. They just needed to use the system which was initially in place in order to control political activity.

[timendres]

8 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

“We must adopt war-time thinking.”

The mindset of the CCP.

[soalbundy]

Anyone who has a facebook account or owns a smartphone shouldn't complain about surveillance. I'm considered by some to live in the dark ages because I don't have an FB account nor do I have a smartphone, If somebody wants to reach me they can write me an email that is as far as I will go in the new tech age, the plus points are that I get very few adverts and no spam, I am unknown so to speak.

[Bender Rodriguez]

1984 has arrived

[topt]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

that includes facial recognition technology that can trace a person’s movement for up to 90 days.

I wonder how true that actually is? There was a report last year from the UK about how inaccurate a facial recognition test used by the police was. Has technology moved on that quickly or........

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/uk-police-facial-recognition-tests-publics-tolerance-68321764

Quote

“In laboratory conditions it’s really effective,” said University of Essex professor Pete Fussey. He monitored the London police trials, which also used NEC's system, and found a different outcome on the streets. He co-authored a report last year that said only eight of its 42 matches were correct. The London program has since been suspended.

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by topt

[GreasyFingers]

7 hours ago, timendres said:

The mindset of the CCP.

Hasn't that thinking also been adopted by some western countries. Cannot find the link but have read a similar comment a few times.

[yuyiinthesky]

6 hours ago, soalbundy said:

Anyone who has a facebook account or owns a smartphone shouldn't complain about surveillance. I'm considered by some to live in the dark ages because I don't have an FB account nor do I have a smartphone, If somebody wants to reach me they can write me an email that is as far as I will go in the new tech age, the plus points are that I get very few adverts and no spam, I am unknown so to speak.

A secure messenger such as Signal, Wire, Telegram, etc (of course not WhatsApp or Messenger) might be a better, safer choice than good old email.

Some of them, such as Wire or Telegram, can also be used on the Desktop / a PC or Mac, or Linux, or through web browsers. You might need your non-smart phone only to receive an activation code SMS.

[yuyiinthesky]

5 hours ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

1984 has arrived

Even more saddening than that many parts of 1984 have arrived is that so many don't even care, give away their freedom so easily.

For the ones not familiar with the meaning of 1984:

 

Quote

Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of government over-reach, totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviours within society.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

 

A "must read" in my humble opionion.

[holy cow cm]

Oh the fun of being controlled and monitored 24/7. China is a communist sewer. 

[tribalfusion001]

Sounds lovely, one party communist state wanting 100% control of their people. I've never been there and never will go there. The problem is that the Thai government would probably like to copy some of these ideas.

[Hayduke]

22 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

he coronavirus outbreak in China has given unprecedented glimpses into how an extensive system of surveillance cameras works, as monitoring stations are rebranded epidemic “war rooms” helping to check people’s movements and stifle the disease.

 

Hmm...war rooms...kind of catchy. It seems I've seen that term used recently in another country. Aw, that can't be, it must be a 'misunderstanding'....what country with a ounce of self respect could possibly be slavishly parroting and sucking up to the Chinese?

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Hayduke

[metisdead]

A post with a link to a Conspiracy-Pseudoscience site and a reply has been removed.

[brenton]

The spying is already here.

[Dap]

9 hours ago, soalbundy said:

Anyone who has a facebook account or owns a smartphone shouldn't complain about surveillance. I'm considered by some to live in the dark ages because I don't have an FB account nor do I have a smartphone, If somebody wants to reach me they can write me an email that is as far as I will go in the new tech age, the plus points are that I get very few adverts and no spam, I am unknown so to speak.