The system of is now known social credit1 long adopted by the Chinese authorities, with which the population is categorized and evaluated according to its public behavior and respect for the values shared by the autocratic regime in Beijing. Everything is brought back to a point system that conditions the social life of the citizen even in the granting of loans, in access to basic health services and in waiting lists to receive the services offered by public authorities.
No wonder then as reported by Human Rights Watch (HRW)2, the international non-governmental organization that deals with the defense of human rights, based in New York. With a report re-launched by some international newspapers3 he denounced the restrictions faced by citizens of the Turkic and Muslim minority of the Uighurs who from 1000 years live in the north-western region of Xinjiang, constituting the 46% of the total population.
The tension between Beijing and the minority has existed for many years, with incidents peaking since the 2013, when numerous attacks were perpetrated, even abroad, against the majority Han ethnicity, to which the central government opposed the restriction within to the Uyghur community of some individual freedoms in the religious field and in the field of clothing (the use of the beard was banned and, for women, that of the veil and the burka).
In 2017, Xi Jinping launched a mass rehabilitation program aimed at assimilating Chinese values, which involved the translation of hundreds of thousands of Uighurs into special secret detention facilities, whose existence, in the 2018, after international disclosure of photos and files, was also confirmed by the Governor of Xinjiang4.
That same year, the NGO in New York came into possession of an App used by the police of the region to control and profile this ethnic minority, whose analysis, conducted with the method of reverse engineering, revealed some areas of shadow on the surveillance implemented in all these years by Beijing.
That, according to a statement by Maya Wang, senior China analyst at HRW, would have set up a persistent control system to monitor the approximately 12 million Uyghurs of Xinjiang, also counting on the presence in the region of about one million, including government officials and police officers.
The App (see video5) has three main functions to collect information from various sensors, report situation data and request the intervention of investigators with an alert signal sent automatically by the system.
The control is based on an integrated operating platform (Integrated joint operations platform, IJOP), which acts as a system of systems (systems of systems) capable of acquiring data from multiple sensors such as spyware installed in mobile phones, Wi-Fi sniffers and CCTV cameras equipped with face recognition and night vision, installed in service stations, at checkpoints, but also in schools and gyms.
The police checkpoints - HRW states, citing anonymous local sources - would also be equipped with "open doors" capable of acquiring the IMEI (International Mobile station Equipment Identity) code of all citizens subject to control, which allows the identification of the device telephone and track the activities.
The IJOP also analyzes and converts the volumes of domestic electricity consumption to extract individual behavioral data and then share the information (the App highlighted a categorization in 36 well of types of individuals "to be taken into consideration" by virtue of the behaviors adopted and beliefs religious and political).
The acquisition of precise answers to targeted questions - was one of the prohibited social networks (such as, for example, WhatsApp) used? were sites that were not authorized by the Government consulted? Have you made use of one of the encryption and virtual private network (VPN) programs that can be freely downloaded online? - causes the insertion of the data obtained in the IJOP system database, for the subsequent analysis conducted with the use of artificial intelligence programs, and for immediate sharing.
As a demonstration of how pervasive the surveillance system is, in the list of questions-indicators that concur to profile each subject, would also include that, possibly, linked to the more or less recurrent use of the door placed on the back of the house in place of the main one….
HRW is convinced of the authenticity of the App that came into its possession, as it is developed by Hebei Far East Communication System Engineering Company (HBFEC), a subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), the main Chinese military contractor.
Furthermore, the fact that HBFEC has also developed another App, which HRW has freely downloaded from a Chinese government site, seems to confirm the authorship of the developer and consequently the authenticity of the product.
The IJOP App would not be the only one used by the Chinese government to control the Uigura minority and the other Muslim religions present in Xinjiang.
A recent article6 by Scilla Pecci, reporter for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist (ICIJ), recounts the success of another application - Zapya7 - is being received in the international Muslim community, attracted by the possibility of downloading and sharing freely on the platform of the Koran and the sacred texts of the Prophet.
The App, developed by DewMobile Inc., a start-up of Beijing, it allows you to download wireless videos and photos between smartphones without necessarily being connected to the web, which is why it has become popular especially in those rural areas of Asia lacking infrastructure, where a large number of Muslims live.
According to what ICIJ writes, which mentions documents8 Chinese "leaked", shared with 17 media partner of the investigative journalist consortium, it is from 2016 that Beijing secretly uses this application to control the phones of Uighur citizens for control and profiling purposes, even if, it should be specified, there are no confirmations of an effective collaboration of DewMobile with the central government.
Xinjiang has a population of around 22 million, ten of which are Uyghur, rising to twelve other Muslim-Muslim minorities.
To date, although not having official numbers, it would be over a million9 the Uighurs detained in the "re-education and training camps" of the region.
A measure deemed necessary by the State Council, the supreme administrative body of the People's Republic of China, for10 "Remove the malignant tumor of terror and extremism that threatens people's lives and security, safeguard the value and dignity of people, protect the right to life, health, development, and to ensure the enjoyment of an environment peaceful and harmonious social.
10http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/whitepaper/201908/17/content_WS5d57573...
Photo: MoD China / The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists / YouTube
