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March 5, 2021 09:25 pm

China's 'Sharp Eyes' Program Aims To Surveil 100% of Public Space

schwit1 shares a report: One of China's largest and most pervasive surveillance networks got its start in a small county about seven hours north of Shanghai. In 2013, the local government in Pingyi County began installing tens of thousands of security cameras across urban and rural areas -- more than 28,500 in total by 2016. Even the smallest villages had at least six security cameras installed, according to state media. Those cameras weren't just monitored by police and automated facial recognition algorithms. Through special TV boxes installed in their homes, local residents could watch live security footage and press a button to summon police if they saw anything amiss. The security footage could also be viewed on smartphones. In 2015 the Chinese government announced that a similar program would be rolled out across China, with a particular focus on remote and rural towns. It was called the "Xueliang Project," or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from communist China's former revolutionary leader Mao Zedong who once wrote that "the people have sharp eyes" when looking out for neighbors not living up to communist values. China's next five-year plan, which covers 2021 to 2025 (PDF), places specific emphasis on giving social governance to local municipalities via the grid system, as well as building out even more security projects, to "strengthen construction of the prevention and control system for public security." This means the future of China's surveillance apparatus likely looks a lot like Sharp Eyes: More power and social control given to local governments, so neighbors watch neighbors.

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