How the mass surveillance application used by the Chinese authorities to persecute and arrest minorities

Human Rights Watch has released a detailed report on the operation of a platform used by Chinese authorities in the northwest Xinjiang region to control and persecute Uighurs, an ethnic group living in the area. .

The Chinese government He has already submitted 13 million Uyghurs and other Muslims to a series of restrictions violating basic human rights. They are controlled and even detained for ridiculous reasons such as "let your beard grow", as stated in the report, which also points out that one million people are detained in "political re-education camps".

At first, the Chinese government denied the existence of these detention centers, but after several reports on these sites, they changed their speeches. They recognized the existence of these places but said that they were places of "education" and that people were there voluntarily.

In order to carry out this control over the residents, the government relies on a system called the Joint Integrated Operations Platform (IJOP, for its acronym in English). Xinjiang authorities are using this site to upload information into a database about people they consider potentially a threat.

Troops use an app to download this information to the system from their mobile phone. Between January 2018 and February 2019, Human Rights Watch developed this application (which was then available to the public) to understand how this mbadive surveillance system works.

The application was developed by the Chinese company Hebei Far East (HBFEC) and the first version was launched in December 2016. To perform this badysis, Human Rights Watch had the support of the German cybersecurity company Cure53.

"Our investigation shows, for the first time, that the Xinjiang police are using illegally collected information about the perfectly legal behavior of people and using it against them."said Maya Wang, a senior researcher in China at Human Rights Watch.

How does the application work?

The application fulfills three main functions: it collects information from people, reports activities or suspicious circumstances and requests that research missions be carried out.

When the system detects a person or something that it suspects, it sends an alert to a government official responsible for investigating it. Then, the authority must report on its findings and, depending on that, it is decided whether it is necessary to continue exploring this topic or not.

On the basis of this information, the authorities restrict the freedom of movement of persons according to the degree of threat that they represent, according to the algorithmic results resulting from the processing of the information.

What information does the application collect?

The application collects a large amount of information from citizens, ranging from the size to the blood group through the political affiliation to religious, through the religious use of gas, from the electricity and the packages that they receive at home.

The site, in turn, ranks people in 36 different profiles according to their behavior. Thus, for example, they distinguish those who socialize with their neighbors; they collect money for mosques, travel "too long" or stop using their smartphone.

How do they get this information?

The IJOP platform controls residents of Xinjiang through the use of their ID cards, mobile phones and vehicles. Much of the information comes from surveillance cameras with facial recognition and checkpoints in the area.

These checkpoints are equipped with "data portals", which surreptitiously collect IMEI numbers (which are unique identifiers of mobile phones).

And we also have information on the human vigilance exercised by more than a million government officials specifically charged with controlling these Muslim minorities, according to the report.

Human Rights Watch full report: