China's foreign surveillance exposed: City platform tracks individuals' locations, contacts

A Chinese city government has been revealed to be operating a sophisticated surveillance system that tracks foreign residents, monitoring their personal information, relationships, movements, and even their whereabouts in real-time. The platform, identified as the 'Dynamic Control Platform for Foreigners' in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, was uncovered by cybersecurity researcher and journalist Marc Hofer.

The system collects vast amounts of data on individuals deemed a threat to social stability, categorizing them as 'key figures.' It reportedly tracks over 700 foreigners residing in the area and holds information on approximately 12,000 individuals, including refugees, journalists, and students. The platform's interface resembles a futuristic dashboard, displaying nationalities, types of residency, workplaces of long-term foreign residents, and the locations of short-term travelers.

Personal details logged include facial photos, passport numbers, phone numbers, affiliations, birth dates, gender, and marital status. The platform also records frequent locations visited, hospital visits, fuel purchases, and even specific seats on flights and trains. Facial recognition technology integrated with CCTV footage tracks individuals in public spaces like intersections, markets, and shopping malls. The system can also map relationships between individuals, as demonstrated by a graphic showing three Pakistani men linked after being captured together on camera.

This discovery provides concrete evidence of China's extensive surveillance apparatus, which is known to combine data from mobile phone tracking, facial and voice recognition, online shopping, and medical records with artificial intelligence to monitor and control its vast population. The platform, believed to be developed by a company called 'Origin Dynamics,' was reportedly accessible to police officers from Zhangjiakou and other cities, with one officer, Zhang Jinglong, having an AI research institute within the police department named after him.