China syndromeChina's big surveillance push

In China’s latest push to keep tabs on its citizens, police in Beijing have ordered supermarkets and shopping malls throughout the city to install high-definition security cameras.

The recent order comes as part of a broader expansion in monitoring technology which includes the addition of millions of surveillance cameras over the past five years and large increases in domestic security spending.

Bo Zhang, a senior research analyst at IMS Research, an electronics-focused consulting firm, estimates that more than ten million cameras were installed in China in 2010 alone at a cost of $680 million. This year total internal security spending is set to reach nearly $97 billion, more than the country’s official military budget. Security spending includes Internet censorship as well as projects like individual identity cards and neighborhood communities that monitor the activity of fellow residents.

Other countries like Britain and the United States have embraced surveillance cameras, but China’s camera network is set to far outpace other countries growing more than 20 percent annually from 2010 to 2014, more than double the rate of others, according to IMS Research.

In May, Shanghai announced that it was creating a staff of 4,000 to ensure twenty-four hour monitoring of its surveillance feeds, while the developing region of Inner Mongolia is slated to have 400,000 cameras by 2012. In the city of Changsha, the Furong district alone is reported to have 40,000 cameras or one for every ten of its inhabitants.

The growing number of surveillance measures have many civil rights advocates concerned. In March, a plan by the government to spend roughly $865,000 to install cameras at cinemas, theaters, and other performance venues drew particular criticism.

“Whereas surveillance cameras are problematic even in democratic societies, there are important counterweights, such as independent courts, privacy statutes, rules about how long the information can be kept and through what legal procedures it can be accessed, as well as independent media and NGO watchdogs,” Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. “None of these safeguards exist in China, raising the very real prospect of an Orwellian society - one in which citizens are monitored in permanence, including in their private life.”

Other civil rights advocates worry that the surveillance networks are being used to oppress China’s citizens and minimize the space for dissent.

“When dissidents are released from prison or labor camp they often find the surveillance cameras are pointing directing into their homes. That’s something I have heard of a lot in the last couple of years,” said Wang Songlian, of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders Network.

Officials maintain that the cameras are being installed to reduce crime and authorities point to the surveillance network’s success in cutting crime, leading some to support such measures. For instance the Shanghai police department says that video surveillance helped lead to the capture of 6,000 suspects last year.

“If the purpose is for the public security of society, personal rights have to give way to public rights,” said Fu Dingsheng, a professor specializing in civil and commercial jurisprudence at the East China University of Political Science and Law. Fu was careful to note that better safeguards were needed to ensure systems were not abused.