The face recognition system seen in the monitor monitoring people. (Photo credit: video screenshot)
A group of Hackers broke into a Shanghai police database late last year and found that it contained details of more than 5,000 foreigners who had traveled through or to Shanghai, including 161 Australian citizens. Analysts believe this database reveals the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party‘s state surveillance system.
The Australian government has stepped in to investigate, wondering if these Australian citizens have been flagged for surveillance by the Shanghai police, who have intelligence and immigration control functions.
According to Radio Australia, a group of hackers breached a security-vulnerable police server in Shanghai in late 2020 and discovered 1.1 million Shanghai police documents and surveillance records, including police watch lists that collected information on tens of thousands of people, as well as reports from police informants, facial and vehicle identification photos and entry and exit data.
Hackers made the data available to Australian security officials, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and several international media outlets so that the international community could learn about the Communist Party’s vast surveillance system.
The documents also included passport details and photos of more than 5,000 foreigners who have entered, left and even passed through Shanghai since 2017, the report said, adding that 116 Australians were among them, including Geoff Miller, a former Australian ambassador and director of the Office of Intelligence Analysis and Assessment, Janis Manning, owner of Meidiaweek and Janis Manning, an executive responsible for technology innovation at Telstra, a senior advisor on data security at National Australia Bank (NAB), an Australian global arms giant, a partner in a consulting firm, the principal of an elite international school in Shanghai, and the director of Australia China Media Group. Media Group) and others, and even some Australian children as young as two years old.
Miller was flagged during a week-long sightseeing trip with his wife in Shanghai in September 2018, the report said; but Manning was flagged during a one-day stay in Shanghai, and even Manning herself wondered how the Chinese Communist Party could have noticed her, saying, “I don’t think they had any reason to be interested in me or in my personal actions. “
Expert on Communist Surveillance: Communist Party Can Monitor Anyone Who Passes By
The discovery of the database comes as Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) warned citizens not to travel to the mainland last year after the Chinese Communist Party detained several foreigners on suspicion of “endangering national security,” the report said.
Samantha Hoffman, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and an international expert on Chinese Communist Party surveillance, said the documents were part of a larger public security and surveillance system developed by the Chinese Communist Party.
She said, “I have seen evidence that other Chinese cities and provinces have developed the same system, and while this data shows information only over Time, it suggests that the CCP surveillance system captures information about foreigners as they travel through the mainland.” She argues that while the data does not explain why the Australians’ information was recorded, it shows that “Communist security can track anyone who travels through the mainland.”
She said the information is eventually fed into a system called “Tianwang,” the Communist Party’s largest video surveillance system, which uses facial recognition, big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to monitor people as part of the mainland’s mass surveillance system.
For her part, Sophie Richardson, director of Human Rights Watch China, said the documents further demonstrate that “the Chinese Communist Party authorities are collecting vast amounts of data on the population without anyone knowing,” but she found it interesting that this is yet another Communist Party data leak in the past few years, saying. “It shows how insecure this data is, even if it was collected by the Chinese Communist authorities.”
For his part, Robert Potter, CEO of Internet 2.0, said the documents show how the Chinese Communist Party is trying to control all data information.
He said, “The Chinese Communist Party uses much larger systems that are much more advanced in size and scope than those in democratic countries.”
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