China is using AI to stalk its citizens and predict future crimes. What could possibly go wrong?

By Malavika Pradeep

Published Jun 27, 2022 at 10:37 AM

Reading time: 3 minutes

32893

Back in December 2021, COVID-19 deaths in South Korea had hit a record high when former Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum admitted that the country could be forced to take “extraordinary measures” to tackle the surge. The plans included the use of AI and facial recognition by leveraging thousands of closed-circuit video cameras to track citizens infected with the virus.

At the time, the public raised several concerns about the technology’s attack on privacy and consent. Is the exchange of personal data for convenience, order and safety a fair trade-off for citizens? Or are governments using the pandemic as an excuse to normalise surveillance?

Now, reports are surfacing that the police in China are buying technology that harnesses vast surveillance data to predict crime and protests before they happen. What’s worse is that the systems in question are targeting potential troublemakers in the eyes of an algorithm and the Chinese authorities—including not only citizens with a criminal past but also vulnerable groups like ethnic minorities, migrant workers, people with a history of mental illness and those diagnosed with HIV.

According to a New York Times (NYT) report, more than 1.4 billion people living in China are being recorded by police cameras that are installed everywhere from street corners and subway ceilings to hotel lobbies and apartment buildings. Heck, even their phones are being tracked, their purchases monitored and their online chats censored. “Now, even their future is under surveillance,” the publication noted.

The latest generation of technology is capable of warning the police if a drug user makes too many calls to the same number or a victim of a fraud travels to Beijing to petition the government for payment. “They can signal officers each time a person with a history of mental illness gets near a school,” NYT added.

Procurement details and other documents reviewed by the publication also highlighted how the technology extends the boundaries of social and political control and incorporates them ever deeper into people’s lives. “At their most basic, they justify suffocating surveillance and violate privacy, while in the extreme they risk automating systemic discrimination and political repression,” the report mentioned.

In 2020, authorities in southern China allegedly denied a woman’s request to shift to Hong Kong to be with her husband after software warned them that the marriage was suspicious. An investigation later revealed that the two were “not often in the same place at the same time and had not spent the Spring Festival holiday together.” The police then concluded that the marriage had been faked to obtain a migration permit.

So, given the fact that Chinese authorities don’t require warrants to collect personal information, how can we know the future has been accurately predicted if the police intervene before it even happens? According to experts, even if the software fails to deduce human behaviour, it can be considered ‘successful’ since the surveillance itself helps curb unrest and crime to a certain extent.

“This is an invisible cage of technology imposed on society,” said Maya Wang, a senior China researcher with Human Rights Watch. “The disproportionate brunt of it being felt by groups of people that are already severely discriminated against in Chinese society.”

In 2017, entrepreneur Yin Qi, who founded an artificial intelligence start-up called Megvii, first introduced a computer system capable of predicting crimes. At the time, he told Chinese state media that if cameras detected a person spending hours at a stretch on a train station, the system could flag a possible pickpocket.

Fast forward to 2022, the police in Tianjin have reportedly bought software made by Hikvision, a Megvii competitor that aims to predict protests. At its core, the system collects data of Chinese petitioners—a general term used to describe people who try to file complaints about local officials with higher authorities in the country. The model then analyses each of these citizens’ likelihood to petition based on their social and family relationships, past trips and personal situations to help authorities create individual profiles—with fields for officers to describe the temperament of the protester, including “paranoid,” “meticulous” and “short tempered.”

“It would be scary if there were actually people watching behind the camera, but behind it is a system,” Qi told state media back in 2017. “It’s like the search engine we use every day to surf the internet—it’s very neutral. It’s supposed to be a benevolent thing.” He also went on to add that with such surveillance, “the bad guys have nowhere to hide.”

Keep On Reading

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Bonnie Blue breaks world record by sleeping with 1,057 men in just 12 hours. Is this empowerment or exploitation?

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Celebrities call out Blue Origin for sending Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez to space

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Is Benson Boone Mormon? The singer opens up about how religion has shaped his life

By Abby Amoakuh

Amandla Stenberg faces colourism backlash for role in Children of Blood and Bone

By Charlie Sawyer

How Netflix’s Adolescence and Kyle Clifford’s triple murders connect to Andrew Tate

By Abby Amoakuh

Only at Coachella can you be caught saying the N-word and still perform without question

By Abby Amoakuh

TikToker who started the NYC influencers are boring trend fired from her job for the viral video

By Charlie Sawyer

What is gang stalking, how to stop it, and is it even real?

By Charlie Sawyer

Chris Brown is facing over 10 years in prison. Here’s how his violent past has led him here

By Abby Amoakuh

Bridgerton fans on X accuse show of sidelining Simone Ashley and her character Kate Sharma

By Charlie Sawyer

We asked men on the street: Would you rather share your emotions with a tree or a woman? Their answers said a lot

By Abby Amoakuh

Francesca Farago reveals that influencers are being paid to participate in trend mocking Hailey Bieber

By Abby Amoakuh

MrBeast faces new backlash as fans demand refunds for disastrous Las Vegas immersive experience

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Here’s how the Trump administration has already worsened the humanitarian crisis in Sudan

By Charlie Sawyer

Can Drake actually sue Kendrick Lamar for his Super Bowl performance diss?

By J'Nae Phillips

The gyaru revival: Why Gen Z are embracing Japan’s most rebellious aesthetic

By Abby Amoakuh

What is dark feminine energy? A complete breakdown of the witchy vibe taking over TikTok

By Abby Amoakuh

From dinner parties to grocery flexing: Inside Gen Z’s new language of luxury

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Inside the awful Instagram accounts exploiting stolen content to create AI Down syndrome models

By Charlie Sawyer

How a viral Etsy review sparked a feminist movement on TikTok by inspiring women to embrace the bush