Title: Mass surveillance in China - Wikipedia
Headings: Mass surveillance in China
Mass surveillance in China
Contents
History
Origin
21st century
Timeline
Technologies
Internet
Sex and pornography on the Internet
Videocameras
Other digital technologies
Applications
Social credit system
By region
Mainland (excluding frontiers)
Tibet
Xinjiang
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Spending estimates
See also
References
External links

Content: Local regulators launched mobile apps for national security purposes and to allow citizens to report violations. As of 2018, the most notable surveillance mechanisms were mass camera surveillance on the streets, internet surveillance, and newly invented surveillance methods based on social credit and identity. As of 2018, the Chinese central government had also adopted facial recognition technology, surveillance drones, robot police, and big data collection targeting online social media platforms to monitor its citizens. In 2019 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said China's mass surveillance mechanisms and machinery of private communications was "utterly mind-boggling". As of 2019, it was estimated that 200 million monitoring CCTV cameras of the "Skynet" system had been put to use in mainland China, four times as many as the surveillance cameras in the United States. State media in China claim that Skynet is the largest video surveillance system in the world, utilizing facial recognition technology and big data analysis. In 2019, Comparitech reported that 8 out of 10 most monitored cities in the world are in China, with Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shanghai being the world's top 3. In 2019, China supplied surveillance technology to most of the world, and positioned the country in control over the mass surveillance industry. According to industry researcher IHS Markit, at the end of 2019 there were 770 million surveillance cameras in China, and this was expected to exceed 1 billion by the end of 2021. The government says this prevents crime, but citizens worry that their data and their privacy could be compromised.