Complex data bases are indispensable for conducting many processes. They are repositories of countless zeros and ones describing anything we let them to registry and besides what we so far regarded as “private”. Capitalists relish trading terabytes of data. Governments as well, since the data allows them to read their citizens like an open book.
The People’s Republic of China uses the achievements of technology for spying on its citizens. The authorities execute control over the monitoring systems across the full territory of the country. By utilizing artificial intelligence and on the basis of collected data it is possible to make exact profiles of the inhabitants. peculiar algorithms measure people’s behaviour and “sort” them into groups. This grading and the sum of points collected within the strategy of social trust find for example whether a given individual will get into college, be able to buy a train ticket or be granted a more favorable credit.
Surveillance behind the large Wall
Surveillance of the Chinese people is based not only on the abovementioned strategy of social trust. The censure of net (The large Firewall of China) and imposition of verified Chinese analogues of global application programs play an crucial role.
The substitute of Google in China is the Baidu search engine. alternatively of Amazon the Chinese usage the offer of the Alibaba holding (the owner of i.a. AliExpress). Tencent corp offers a multifunctional application program WeChat. It not only performs the function of a communicator (like Messenger or WhatsApp) and social media (like e.g. Facebook), but is besides a mobile payment and networking tool and has another functions. So it collects varied information on consumers.
One should remember that the Communist organization of China claims access rights to delicate data acquired by any business functioning within land borders. This applies besides for communication companies, mobile device producers or the abovementioned corporations. Thus the “western” fear of TikTok expansion and concerns regarding privacy protection of the users of Chinese articles of technology industry. It is interesting that insofar the giants of technology named frequently by the acronym BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi) willingly export their goods to the abroad markets, the access to the GAFAM products — Google (today also: Alphabet), Amazon, Facebook (also: Meta), Apple and Microsoft — is consequently restricted in China.
Dangerous “made in China”?
At the beginning of 2023 scientists from the universities of Edinburgh and Dublin have published the results of a very perceptive analysis of data transfer by smartphones from 3 Chinese brands: OnePlus, Xiaomi and Realme. The devices were bought from Chinese distribution sources, they were equipped with local SIM cards and their localization was simulated as China. All these measures were to recreate the conditions under which a citizen of the mediate Kingdom uses his phone.
Information on installed apps and the past of their use, data on geolocation, sent data and connections made and even audio and notebook recordings — all this information, without the approval of the user, was passed by the devices to respective servers in China. What is most disconcerting is that there is no anticipation of withdrawing the permissions assigned by default. The control example of models intended for the global marketplace has not shown specified extended data acquisition, but the devices inactive send any amount of it to the external company servers.
The possible threat coming from products that spy for China is not limited to smartphones alone. In 2022, large Britain, United States and Australia withdrew from Chinese monitoring systems in government buildings and another susceptible places. It wasn’t easy, since the British police, for example, utilized till that time (in the majority of cases) the equipment produced, at least partially, in China.
In the USA the government has banned completely the sale of products made by companies specified as Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, Dahua and Hytera, considering Chinese devices to be a threat to national security. But in many European countries CCTV cameras of Chinese brands specified as Dahua or Hikvision are inactive being used. They are monitoring the public space (e.g. airports and city streets, public transport vehicles), government institutions and private buildings. In Poland specified cameras “guard” besides the Cracow villa of president Duda. Attention is drawn to the anticipation of the existence of the so called “backdoors” in Chinese devices, which make unauthorized capturing of collected data possible. Besides, according to Chinese law, the authorities may request access to information on users, besides the abroad ones, collected by local companies. It besides poses an ethical problem erstwhile we know that in China the Hikvision devices are utilized for controlling (and repressing) the cultural minorities, e.g. the Uighurs.
It borders on miraculous that, despite the increasing number of reservations regarding the Chinese equipment, its popularity on the western marketplace does not decrease. The key word in this case seems to be the price. The Hikvision devices may cost even 10 times little than the competitor’s products. This lure works on crowds of consumers — governments as well as individual customers — just perfectly. Possibly it is the close ties to the Chinese authorities that let enterprises to offer so importantly reduced prices. For us this should alternatively be another reason for concern.
The mirror in which America is reflected or the American dream come actual turning into a nightmare?
Many people inactive respect China an exotic curiosity and an example of how an authoritarian government takes actions. At the same time the anticipation of any serious surveillance existing in democratic countries is being counted among Hollywood fairytales. Looking with a critical eye upon the actions of the US secret intelligence we can inactive see a problem of much akin nature, peculiarly in the light of the NSA and CIA actions uncloaked in 2013. Edward Snowden, who at that time was working at the National safety Agency, has shown to the press proof of wide-scale surveillance practices by the US authorities and became possibly 1 of the best recognizable whistle-blowers of our times. The existence of PRISM and XKeyscore spyware has been revealed.
Enterprises specified as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Skype or Apple have joined the American government strategy PRISM. This way, NSA could ask for access to a scope of information from the net service providers: data from the electronic post and chats, photos made accessible by the users, videos (including call records) and data collected on social networks. Furthermore XKeyscore allows the intelligence services to omit the VPN safety net and detect the IP addresses of users who visit a given site. A NSA analyst may besides monitor the search history. The program allows surveillance in real time, keeping abreast of the net activity of the target.
Such activities are excused as concern for the safety of the US citizens. The Patriot Act, passed in a hurry after the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, was supposedly aiming at the assassins. The presentation describing the functioning of XKeyscore, purloined by Snowden, informs that on the basis of data obtained due to spyware tracked and caught were 300 terrorists. This number inactive seems to be disproportionately tiny as compared to the efforts and scale of the operation.
In reality the act allows the investigative services access to very delicate and detailed data of “ordinary” citizens — without a court order. Perhaps then the attitude towards privacy and safety on the other sides of the global political scale is not that much different and the American surveillance doctrine shows no crucial deviation from the Chinese one. Snowden’s words in this respect are worth quoting: if something can be done, it most likely will be done, and possibly already has been. There simply was no way that America – having so much information on the activities of the Chinese – would not hotel to the same methods. Governments and corporations on both sides of the political barricade are leading a fight for our data. Considering the scale of surveillance in China and its influence on the lives of its inhabitants we cannot let that our everyday life takes the same shape.
Global marketplace of malpractices
It would be naive to believe that the mentioned cases were incidental. Spyware basing on various technologies functions in all region of the world. Beginning with military satellite solutions, through electronic intelligence systems specified as Echelon, ending with infecting mobile phones with spyware of Pegasus type.
In 2018 the laboratory Citizen laboratory operating at the University of Toronto has published a investigation study on the usage of Pegasus all over the world. Operations with this program were detected in as many as 45 countries, including Poland. Devices with Android or iOS may be infected by sending a telephone connection signal or a link which displaying or clicking into results in connecting the device with the operator’s server. This way Pegasus gets access to all telephone functions and besides to the settings. It collects information on the localization, connections made and sent messages. Possible is besides insight into photos and search past as well as control over the option to registry the sound. Without any cognition of the user his smartphone becomes a bugging device.
Often the usage of this Israeli NSO Group Company product (meaning Pegasus) is aimed to hit the activists, social workers, journalists or lawyers. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, clearly pointed out that the surveillance practices contradict the values represented by the European Union. In March 2022, a peculiar committee of enquiry was set up within the European Parliament (PEGA). Its work should show whether in peculiar cases the usage of surveillance programs infringes EU law.
Strong opposition raises against the surveillance programs utilized in politics. writer investigations in Poland allowed to find that the Central Anticorruption Bureau (Centralne Biuro Antykorupcyjne; CBA) has most most likely bought Pegasus in 2017. The transaction was expected to concern the means of peculiar technology utilized for detection and prevention of crime. However, it has been shown that with the aid of this program land authorities were invigilating opposition activists and lawyers.
On-demand tracking?
Yet, for example representatives of the Hungarian authorities see nothing incorrect in the surveillance of citizens. Lajos Kosa, 1 of the Parliament members, was to say that the giants of technology execute a much broader surveillance over their users than the Hungarian government. What is worse, it is possible that he was right. The mosaic of capitalistic dependencies which specify the present reality and the progressing digitization of almost all life domain do not let us to forget that the fresh currency of control is information. It is traded by all players that count.
Berenika Serwatka
Translated from Polish by Beata Kita, August 2023
