Chinese artists have staged performances to highlight the ubiquity of surveillance cameras. Privacy activists have filed lawsuits against the collection of facial recognition data. Ordinary citizens and establishment intellectuals alike have pushed back against the abuse of Covid tracking apps by authorities to curb protests. Internet users have shared tips on how to evade digital monitoring.
As China builds up its vast surveillance and security apparatus, it is running up against growing public unease about the lack of safeguards to prevent the theft or misuse of personal data. The ruling Communist Party is keenly aware of the cost to its credibility of any major security lapses: Last week, it moved systematically to squelch news about what was probably the largest known breach of a Chinese government computer system, involving the personal information of as many as 1 billion citizens.
The breach dealt a blow to Beijing, exposing the risks of its expansive efforts to vacuum up enormous amounts of digital and biological information on the daily activities and social connections of its people from social media posts, biometric data, phone records and surveillance videos. The government says these efforts are necessary for public safety: to limit the spread of Covid, for instance, or to catch criminals. But its failure to protect the data exposes citizens to problems like fraud and extortion and threatens to erode people’s willingness to comply with surveillance.
“You never know who is going to sell or leak your information,” said Jewel Liao, a Shanghai resident whose details were among those released in the leak. “It’s just a bit unusual to see that even the police are vulnerable too.”
China, which has been racing to implement one of the world’s toughest data privacy regimes, frequently excoriates companies for mishandling data. But authorities rarely point fingers at the country’s other top collector of personal information: the government itself.
Security researchers say the leaked database, apparently used by the police in Shanghai, had been left online and unsecured for months. It was exposed after an anonymous user posted in an online forum offering to sell the vast trove of data for 10 Bitcoin, or about $200,000. The New York Times confirmed parts of a sample of the database released by the anonymous user, who posted under the name ChinaDan.
In addition to basic information like names, addresses and ID numbers, the sample also featured details that appeared to be drawn from external databases, like instructions for couriers on where to drop off deliveries, raising questions about how much information private companies share with authorities. And, of particular concern for many, it also contained intensely personal information, such as police reports that included the names of people accused of rape and domestic violence, as well as private information about political dissidents.
The government has sought to erase nearly all discussion of the leak. At a Cabinet meeting chaired by China’s premier, Li Keqiang, last week, officials made only a passing reference to the question of privacy, emphasising the need to “defend information security” so that the public and businesses could “operate with peace of mind,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
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