The text discusses China's extensive surveillance system, which collects a wide array of personal data from its citizens. This data includes biometric information such as voice prints, iris scans, and DNA samples, and is used to create comprehensive profiles that can be accessed by government officials. The system also involves the use of facial recognition technology, phone trackers, and software to analyze and extract more information from the collected data. The ultimate goal of this surveillance system is to maintain authoritarian rule over the population.
1. The text discusses the unique characteristics of an individual, such as their eyes, voice, and nose.
2. These unique characteristics can be used to track individuals.
3. In China, the government collects information such as an individual's appearance, the technology they use, and the sound of their voice.
4. The scale of this surveillance and the infrastructure supporting it are larger and more elaborate than previously known.
5. The New York Times has analyzed more than 100,000 government bidding documents over a year.
6. These documents detail what surveillance products and services government agencies need, from phone trackers to equipment used to collect iris scans and DNA samples.
7. The documents reveal China’s ambition in collecting vast amounts of sensitive personal data.
8. China aims to gather as much information as possible on its citizens, centralize this data, and use it to maintain authoritarian rule.
9. Analysts estimate that over half of the world’s nearly one billion surveillance cameras are in China.
10. These cameras surveil and store the images of all who cross their paths.
11. A bidding document from Fujian Province details the police’s plan to improve their facial analysis system.
12. The system captures a large amount of data, so much so that they required a database 20 times as large.
13. The system detects faces from video feeds and stores 2,000 images of those faces every day.
14. Police keep them for six months.
15. There are 7,000 video feeds in this Fujian system.
16. This is three times bigger than one of the largest U.S. government facial-recognition databases.
17. Throughout China, authorities are highly strategic about where they place cameras.
18. Dozens of documents show that police detail the locations and precise viewing angles for the cameras.
19. The government is actively collecting voice prints, iris scans, and DNA samples from its people.
20. The primary use of this material is to track criminals.
21. Chinese authorities are starting to collect personal identifiers that are less likely to change over time, such as iris patterns.
22. One document reveals that a government contractor built a database that can hold iris samples of up to 30 million people.
23. The Chinese government is collecting another type of sensitive biometric data — DNA from men.
24. Authorities can use genetic tracing to catalog entire generations of men.
25. The Chinese government is consolidating vast quantities of unique personal data with one ultimate goal — to build a comprehensive profile for each citizen, accessible anytime, anywhere.