The Dark Side to China’s Smart Cities: Everyone’s Being Watched



About 500 of the roughly 1,000 smart cities being built worldwide are in China, but the money allocated for the cities, $74 billion in public and private investment, has instead been spent on enhancing government surveillance of Chinese citizens. The security apparatus uses a vast network of cameras, facial and even gait recognition along with artificial intelligence and cloud computing to identify and track many of China’s 1.34 billion people. Most citizens are required to download apps on their phones that let the authorities monitor what they look at and track their movements, which can land someone in one of the gulags.

Earlier this year, a U.S. congressional committee commissioned a
report on China’s development of “smart cities,” with a particular focus
on whether they were smarter than their American counterparts.

The
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s (USCC) request for
submissions was revealing because it showed that, despite the hype, not
much is known about the fruits of China’s efforts to build such cities.
Smart cities are highly digitally connected and use the latest
technology to manage services.

About 500 of the roughly 1,000
smart cities being built worldwide are in China, according to Chinese
state media, government figures and estimates from Deloitte. Under a
five-year plan to the end of 2020, the Chinese government expects $74
billion of public and private investment in these cities.

Yet while scattered futuristic pilot examples can be found — from intelligent lighting and power grids to smart traffic management — there is little evidence that this grand vision is dramatically improving the lives of the masses.

Instead, it appears that the bulk of the resources poured into smart
city development has gone into improving surveillance of Chinese
citizens by the pervasive domestic security services. For nearly a
decade, China has spent more on internal security than on its defense
budget. Put another way: The Communist Party spends more on monitoring
its own people than on guarding against foreign threats.

“It’s
very clear that surveillance is a significant element in China’s
conception of smart cities,” says Rogier Creemers, an expert in Chinese
law and technology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “This
involves across-the-board surveillance that is partly political and
partly about mechanizing ordinary street-level policing.”

The
security apparatus uses a vast network of cameras, facial and even gait
recognition along with artificial intelligence and cloud computing to
identify and track many of China’s 1.34 billion people.

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