Discussion

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  Specialized software helps them program digital tripwires on predetermined behaviors they believe could signal a crime. If someone goes to a train station daily, but doesn't ride, they might be a pickpocket. An alarm instructs police to check on them. No warrant necessary. https:…

• @nytimes @nytimes on x

  Across China, the police are buying technology that harnesses troves of data on civilians to predict crimes and protests before they happen. The systems target people deemed suspicious, even if they've done nothing wrong. Here's what to know. https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @jangles Neville Hobson on x

  Building the Department of Pre-Crime in #China. If ever there was a case of abuse of #BigData, this surely is it. Depends on your point of view, I guess. #surveillance https://twitter.com/...

• @jchengwsj Jonathan Cheng on x

  “Many people who petition do so over government mishandling of a tragic accident...which goes into the algorithm. 'Increase a person's early-warning risk level if they have low social status or went through a major tragedy,' reads the procurement document.” https://www.nytimes.co…

• @tonynashnerd Tony Nash on x

  🇨🇳China's AI Revolution, folks.... https://twitter.com/...

• @antd Antony Dapiran on x

  Frightening thread. (Or reassuring, I guess, depending on your point-of-view?) https://twitter.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  Systems using AI to better predict human behavior are on the way. Whether they will work is a classic sci fi conundrum: How do you know you predicted the future if you intervene to change it? It may not matter. Suffocating surveillance makes its own future, one of obedience. http…

• @profwoodward Alan Woodward on x

  This piece is a warning of what can happen - we think of China as an exception but it could happen anywhere, for the best of intentions. https://twitter.com/...

• @willwilkinson Will Wilkinson on x

  Like freedom? You'll love Web5. https://twitter.com/...

• @teddyboylocsin Teddy Locsin Jr on x

  Sometimes, your eyes give you away; like restless eye syndrome—left to right and up and down repeatedly. If you can make them go around in circles, counterclockwise for one, you have a new career in a circus. https://twitter.com/...

• @blader Siqi Chen on x

  Wow. The Chinese built ... Palantir. https://twitter.com/...

• @zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x

  “The technology digs through personal data to target those who, in the eyes of the Chinese government, are potential troublemakers — not only people with a criminal past, but also vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities and those with mental illness.” https://twitter.com/.…

• @denverbitcoin @denverbitcoin on x

  This thread is horrifying. The complete obliteration of individual liberties & privacy. Stand against this at all costs. This is a hill worth dying on. https://twitter.com/...

• @dsorennie David Rennie on x

  Important report shows the work China's vast, pitiless police state puts into tracking people trying legally to petition central authorities for redress, eg after the death of a child due to official negligence. Remember it next time you read about China's “responsive autocracy” …

• @tonyromm Tony Romm on x

  well this is scary — and the reporting here is astounding https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  So with the above, it's trivial to set an alarm that sends police if three known drug users go into a park and stay there for more than one hour at the same time. Or if four protesters go to the same dining street and stay two hours. Police are often open that they're profiling. …

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  He used to slip out to the backroads of the countryside and dodge security to get to Beijing. No longer. Since his Jan trip a new alarm seems to have appeared. Each time he turns off his phone, local police come to check he hasn't left for Beijing. (below: cameras by his house) h…

• @muyixiao Muyi Xiao on x

  Here is our second story on China's surveillance ambitions: Awash in a sea of surveillance data, the police use software to recognize behavior patterns, detect aberrations and try to preemptively stop threats from materializing. W/ @paulmozur @JohnLiuNN https://www.nytimes.com/..…

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  Police are pushing it further. A 2022 system found by @ipvideo in Tianjin scores petitioners on how likely they are to go to Beijing to protest. The system will run records through machine learning to better predict risk and signs of individual protests. https://ipvm.com/...

• @pekingmike Mike Forsythe on x

  “Now, the entire country is a net.” - a chilling techno-totalitarianism that isn't the stuff of fiction. It's here. In China. The latest in an incredible and disturbing series. By ⁦⁦@paulmozur⁩ ⁦@muyixiao⁩ and John Liu. https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  But not all are equal. Chinese police also keep “red lists.” The red list marks people who the surveillance system ignores. They pass and it registers no record. Sources and some projects clarified, such privileges are for Chinese Communist Party officials. https://twitter.com/..…

• @lynaldencontact Lyn Alden on x

  When science fiction becomes reality. https://twitter.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  The possibilities are endless. A drug user calls out of town four times in a day, he could be selling and an alarm is sent. Several known protesters board a train to Beijing, police can be waiting to pick them up when they arrive in the capital. https://twitter.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  Things can get very prejudiced very fast. In Fujian police hung cameras outside the house of nine people known to have mental illness. Mentally ill are often blacklisted. One police journal offered an alarm idea: whenever a mentally ill person goes near a school, send officers. h…

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  It's just the first inning. ‘An Invisible Cage’: How China Is Policing the Future https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @paulmozur Paul Mozur on x

  China's surveillance produces more data than any group can watch. These software systems offer a solution. The picture that emerges is one of automated profiling, in which Chinese authorities target the most vulnerable and most politically dangerous. https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @joshgellers Josh Gellers on x

  Minority Report is no longer fiction when countries arrest people for pre-crimes. https://twitter.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  The net result of policing like this is to create an “invisible cage” around China's most vulnerable and also most politically active. Here's one example of the software police use to do it. Drop down menus let them set alarms based on blacklisted people's behaviors: https://twit…

• @gladstein Alex Gladstein on x

  Incredible thread on how “Minority Report”-style predictive policing works in China. Coming soon to a police department near you. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @starchambermaid @starchambermaid on x

  I saw this on TV, it was called “Person of Interest.” https://www.imdb.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @paulmozur @paulmozur on x

  Police have competitions to craft these experiments in profiling. They can be quite creative. In Yangshuo foreigners without work permits who hang around bars or English schools too long trigger alarms. Elsewhere police look for multiple criminals checking into the same hotel. ht…

• @jchengwsj Jonathan Cheng on x

  In 2017, Megvii's founder said its surveillance system could give the police a search engine for crime. With such surveillance, “the bad guys have nowhere to hide.” Five years later, his vision is slowly becoming reality. @paulmozur @muyixiao @JohnLiuNN https://www.nytimes.com/..…

• @privacydigest @privacydigest on x

  How China Is Policing the Future Vast surveillance data allows the state to target people whose behavior or characteristics are deemed suspicious by an algorithm, even if they've done nothing wrong. https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @mparekh Michael on x

  Majority Report. #China #Tech via @NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  I have long called China a “surveillance economy,” which this chronicles well via @NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/...