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: 21st century
See also: Internet in China and Supercomputing in China
In 2005, the Chinese government created a mass surveillance system called Skynet. The government revealed Skynet's existence in 2013, by which time the network included over 20 million cameras. In addition to monitoring the general public, cameras were installed outside mosques in the Xinjiang region, temples in Tibet, and the homes of dissidents. In 2017, the Chinese government encouraged the use of various mobile phone apps as part of a broader surveillance push. 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.