The Future Of Policing In China Is Pervasive, Surveillance-Driven Law Enforcement Crystal Balls

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the pre-criming-billions dept

China is choked by surveillance. It’s everywhere and it touches every aspect of its citizens’ lives. The government uses it to stifle dissent, control the population, and persecute undesirables.

Law enforcement has been doing pre-crime for years, but China’s version is amped up and all-consuming. “Guilty until forever” is the guideline in China, where massive amounts of data from surveillance dragnets allow the government to assume things about people. It also allows them to convert normal activities into crime predicates by assuming the worst about its own citizens. This New York Times report shows just how far off the pre-crime deep end China has gone. Everything is on the table because, well, everything is available to a government that immerses its citizens in always-on surveillance.

The latest generation of technology digs through the vast amounts of data collected on their daily activities to find patterns and aberrations, promising to predict crimes or protests before they happen. They target potential troublemakers in the eyes of the Chinese government — not only those with a criminal past but also vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities, migrant workers and those with a history of mental illness.

They can warn the police if a victim of a fraud tries to travel to Beijing to petition the government for payment or a drug user makes too many calls to the same number. They can signal officers each time a person with a history of mental illness gets near a school.

The only way to opt-out (so to speak) is to get off the surveillance grid. The Times report details the efforts taken by 74-year-old Zhang Yuqiao, who has been petitioning the government regularly for years. To avoid being caught in China’s surveillance net (and punished for bothering his government too often), Zhang turns off his phone, uses cash, and buys multiple rail tickets to destinations he’s never going to travel to.

That sort of effort may pay off in the short run. But it’s only a matter of time before the Chinese government decides a dearth of generated data is itself indicative of criminal plans or activities. After all, even the US government tends to believe these same things (the carrying of cash, tickets purchased at the last minute or for one-way trips) are things only criminals do.

And, much like every other government in the world, the Chinese government trumpets the successes of this pre-crime program that affects billions by pointing out the rounding error’s-worth of wins the system has provided. The wins, though, are underwhelming. Two cases highlighted by the Chinese government involved a fake migration permit and the apprehension of someone involved in a pyramid scheme. Not exactly the sort serious crime/national security threat one would assume an expensive, expansive system would be used for.

To accomplish this, the Chinese government is recruiting local tech companies. One is Megvii, an AI startup that has, for the past five years, created a “search engine for crime” that “digs out ordinary people who seem innocent” to help the government punish people for things like spending too much time at a train station.

Another is Hikvision, which supplies cameras to many of the Chinese government internment camps. The end goal of this collaboration is to shield the government from controversy and criticism.

In 2022, the police in Tianjin bought software made by a Megvii competitor, Hikvision, that aims to predict protests. The system collects data on legions of Chinese petitioners, a general term in China that describes people who try to file complaints about local officials with higher authorities.

It then scores petitioners on the likelihood that they will travel to Beijing. In the future, the data will be used to train machine-learning models, according to a procurement document.

Local officials want to prevent such trips to avoid political embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing. And the central government doesn’t want groups of disgruntled citizens gathering in the capital.

Authorities are invited to fill in the blanks as to perceived temperament of those listed as problematic petitioners, often using loaded terms like “paranoid” or “short tempered.” This tracks directly with other efforts uncovered by the New York Times using leaked or otherwise obtained documents detailing Chinese surveillance — ones that include increased surveillance of “key persons” targeted by the government: people with mental illnesses, migrant workers, “idle” teenagers, ethnic minorities, and people suffering from HIV.

As for staying off the grid, like Zhang Yuqiao has tried to do? Well, as he found out when he started dodging the government’s surveillance, the grid comes to you. Photos in article show several cameras set up near Zhang’s home. According to Zhang, there are no other cameras in the village. When he has tried to dodge surveillance by turning off his phone, officers show up at his house to make sure he isn’t off on another trip to Beijing to again demand compensation for the torture of his family during the Cultural Revolution.

That’s how pre-crime works. The surveillance net is deployed. Data and recordings are fed to algorithms. The government adds its own bias. And out pops the sort of thing we’re seeing here: the unending persecution of someone who just wants the government to be held accountable for its actions. That’s the sort of threat the Chinese government really fears. Regular criminal activity is a nuisance. But government criticism is dangerous.

Filed Under: ai, china, pre-crime, surveillance
Companies: hikvision, megvii