Xi Jinping’s high-tech surveillance state

News Snapshot:

The social credit system, if it is realised as intended, will be another instance of distributed surveillance. Building it and operating it will call upon the attention and energies of countless people spread across the landscape of Chinese society – not only or even primarily the capacities of state security bureaucracies. The foundation of this data-processing initiative will be the information provided by grid attendants, university staff and students, local party and government officials, business operators, residential management staff, medical personnel, schoolteachers, urban facilities managers, and everyday people going about their lives in the most unassuming manner. Formal and informal...