China To Deploy World's Largest People Tracking Network

hackingbear writes "News.com reports that China is building the largest and most sophisticated people-tracking network in the world, all to track citizens in the city of Shenzhen. This network utilizes 20,000 intelligent digital cameras and RFID cards to keep track of the 12.4 million people living in the Southern port city. The key to the system is the new residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips. 'Data on the chip will include not just the citizen's name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord's phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China's controversial "one child" policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.' While I lived in Shenzhen, there indeed were (and still are) plenty of crimes. One of my friend who lived at the 20th floor of a condo building in a nice neighborhood saw an intruder in the middle of one night while he was sleeping. Still, this will clearly raise the fear of human rights abuses. And ... 'one of the most startling aspects of this plan is that this project is mostly made possible by an American company with solid venture fundings.'"

Comments

Obligotory

[AlanS2002]

I, for one, welcome our new ever surveillant overlords.

Re:This is why I am scared

[maxume]

You're. Dammit.

Re:Johnny Mnemonic (1995) in China, err 2021.

[Anonymous Coward]

Johnny is hired to carry 320 gigabytes of crucial information to safety from the Pharmacom corporation.

Hahahahaha, i've 4 hard disks of 750 GigaBytes that sum 3 TeraBytes.

Johnny! Mine is more than yours!

I don't use LZW compressor like Johnny has!!!
I use the 31337 7zip-4.51 LZMA compressor!!!

Warn: it's only for fraudulent businesses.

Re:People Tracking & RFID

[gweihir]

Oh, I did not say that there were no phones that have GPS. Learn to read, people. But the typial mass-market phone does not have GPS, since a GPS receiver is more expensive than the complete phone. The wikipedia article talks about a technological standard that creates the possibility for A-GPS in phones. It does not mandate its presence. The Nokia N95 is not a typical phone, but in the PDA class and expensive enough that a GPS module becomes economically feasible to put in.

So I re-iterate: The typical phone has no GPS, but can be triangulated and is routinely by the cell-phone network, since that is needed for its operation.