The CCP doesnt only collect data through invasive surveillance technologies like cameras that employ facial recognition. It also relies on technologies that provide everyday services, like devices associated with smart cities. Long before AI or big data became buzzwords, the Partys intent was to co-optnot simply coercesociety to participate in its own control.

A: The CCP collects data in bulk and worries about what to do with it later. Even if its not all immediately usable, the Party anticipates better technical ability to exploit the data later on.

Large data sets can reveal patterns and trends in human behavior, which help the CCP with intelligence and propaganda as well as surveillance. Some of that data is fed into tools such as the social credit system. Bulk data, like images and voice data, can also be used to train algorithms for facial and voice recognition.

The CCPs methods are not that different from what we see in the global advertising industry. But instead of trying to sell a product, the CCP is trying to exert authoritarian control. Its using capitalism as a vehicle to access data that can help it disrupt democratic processes and create a more favorable global environment for its power.

A: Citizens of liberal democracies are rightly concerned with how tech companies abuse their data, but at least in liberal democracies there are growing restraints on how data is used. In China, where the party-state literally says that the purpose of the law is to strengthen and improve the Partys leadership, technology is deployed to extend the political power of the party-state and developed according to that standard. The Party talks about its intent to shape global public opinion in order to protect and expand its own political power. At the same time, Chinese tech companies collect data in support of such efforts. Anyone living in a liberal democracy should be concerned about the ramifications this has for freedoms and privacy.

A: I will not put it on mine. TikTok is a good example of a seemingly benign app that can give the CCP a lot of useful data. You wouldnt think of a social-media app that is used by a lot of children around the world as being inherently problematic for political reasons. But the sentiment data from an app like TikTok can be used to understand how people are influenced and how they think. A lawsuit recently filed against the company in California alleges that face data collected from the app was connected to PRC [Peoples Republic of China]based servers, raising significant privacy concerns.

TikTok has said that it stores user data in servers located in the US and Singapore, but this is a way of evading questions about the Partys potential political control over the company. Additionally, the app has been found censoring or suppressing Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ content, among other subjects. To me this has happened frequently enough around the world to look like a pattern rather than a mistake, and this is a wrong that I cannot overlook.

A: GTCOM is a big-data and AI company that is controlled by Chinas Central Propaganda Department, which is deeply involved in Party attempts to shift the global narrative around Chinas power. One of their products claims to collect 10 terabytes of data a day, or two to three petabytes per year, from web pages, forums, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, and other sources. In terms of size, thats the equivalent of 20 billion Facebook photos. The company describes its work as contributing directly to Chinas national security, including military intelligence and propaganda.

GTCOMs research and development arm has developed algorithms that look for military keywords in the information it collects, which could for instance come from CVs or patents. The company has specifically stated that its work assists with state security. In 2017, a senior executive said that GTCOM had established an information security system that relies on image, text, and voice recognition to prevent security risks and provide technical support and assistance for state security.

A: GTCOM has strong relationships with Chinese tech companies that have a large global presence. For instance, it has a strategic agreement with Alibaba Cloud to embed its translation services in the companys technology. GTCOMs service-providing business model allows it to collect any data that GTCOM translation services generate. At face value, it might look like its services are used to improve translation quality, but in reality they are also used to build other products, including products connected to national security work.

GTCOM has established partnerships with linguistics researchers worldwide. These partnerships give GTCOM access to a broad variety of data. What GTCOM is doing is not dissimilar to [American analytics company] Palantir in terms of big-data analytics. The difference is that the intent driving GTCOMs work is framed by the CCP, whose interests run counter to those of a liberal democracy.

A: Ideal solutions dont exist yet, partly because research on these issues hasnt been in-depth or forward-looking. But we can start with greater investment in data literacy and data transparency programs. Liberal democracies must improve due diligence around security in the digital supply chain, invest in research and development, and become more competitive in the smart technologies market. They cannot go at this alone; alliances must be strengthened. Finally, liberal democratic governments must bolster data privacy laws and rethink how to manage propaganda from both foreign and domestic sources in the digital agebut without compromising democratic values along the way. To do that, they must be clear about what their values are and why they differ from those of authoritarian regimes.

See the rest here:
How China surveils the world - MIT Technology Review