Smart ID cards and facial recognition: How China spreads surveillance tech around the world

Chinese companies sell monitoring technology to foreign governments

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Visitors at the China International Exhibition on Public Safety and Security, filmed by security cameras with facial recognition technology, in Beijing on October 24. (Picture: AFP)

Published: 9:37pm, 15 Nov 2018Updated: 8:45am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

A lucrative Chinese export has found eager customers from Asia to South America.

I’m not talking about cheap clothes or electronics. Increasingly, governments from around the world are turning to China for technology that enables surveillance and tracking.

The latest example comes from Venezuela, where authorities have enlisted Chinese telecom giant ZTE to build a digital ID system, designed to monitor medical records, social media presence, and even vote participation using smart cards, according to a Reuters report.

It’s a vision that meshes closely with China’s. In a country where cell phone owners, gamers and social media users all have to register with their real names, critics worry that the Chinese government can pressure companies to expose the identity and behavior of any customer. As these technologies become more indispensable, people are finding it difficult to opt out, despite privacy concerns.

And that’s merely one instrument in China’s giant surveillance toolbox.

Other countries are adopting facial recognition systems made by Chinese companies, raising questions about personal privacy and human rights. A recent report from Freedom House, a think tank funded by the US government, says that Chinese tech companies are supplying AI surveillance tools to 18 of the 65 countries it assessed.