Across China, the police are buying technology that harnesses vast surveillance data to predict crime and protest before they happen. The systems and software are targeting people whose behavior or characteristics are suspicious in the eyes of an algorithm and the Chinese authorities, even if they’ve done nothing wrong.–“How China is Policing the Future,” The New York Times, June 25, 2022
Here in the Garden, we’re as appalled as anyone about how the Chinese government is leveraging technology such as big data, CCTV cameras, smart phone technology, facial recognition, and GPS tracking to monitor, control, and suppress its own population. But having once been in the computer programming game ourselves, we have to wonder what is going through the minds of the bright young things of China’s technocracy who are bringing this all about. We imagine here how the conversation might have started…
PLACE: THE PEOPLE’S COOPERATIVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT CENTER FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF A HAPPY TRANQUIL SOCIETY, SOMEWHERE IN BEIJING
COMRADE DARRYL: Hey Comrade Duane, can I run something by you…
COMRADE DUANE: [furiously thumbing his smartphone]: one sec dude, I’m just about to level up in Smash American Hegemony in the South Pacific…awesome, I just got like a zillion points for nuking Guam! What up, bro?
COMRADE DARRYL: Well you know how half of us here in China are loyal citizens of the People’s Republic, and the other half are like security police to make sure that the first half stays that way…
COMRADE DUANE: Yeah, and it totally sucks!
COMRADE DARRYL: Right?
COMRADE DUANE: It’s like you can’t take a piss behind a bush without a cop popping up and arresting you…not that I would ever, outside of a designated People’s Facility for the Release of Bodily…
COMRADE DARRYL: No, of course not! Me neither! But what I mean is it’s so freaking labor intensive! Hey, remember that app we made a couple years ago to track every citizen’s COVID status?
COMRADE DUANE: You mean that one that made it such a pain in the ass to go anywhere or do anything if you hadn’t been vaccinated?
COMRADE DARRYL: Right!
COMRADE DUANE: Or had tested positive within the last two weeks?
COMRADE DARRYL: That’s the one!
COMRADE DUANE: Or lived in the same building as someone who had tested positive or hadn’t been vaccinated!
COMRADE DARRYL: Exactly!
COMRADE DUANE: Or was tracked on GPS to be within one kilometer of anyone who…
COMRADE DARRYL: Yeah dude, you don’t have to like repeat the whole freaking algorithm. So what if we like adapt that algorithm and marry it to the database of dissidents, criminals, and everyone who’s ever said anything that implies that Premier Hsi is a doo-doo head?
COMRADE DUANE: You mean so we can help criminals who’ve caught COVID?
COMRADE DARRYL: No, dummy, so we can track their movements anywhere in the country in real time!
COMRADE DUANE: Hey, yeah! And we can use it to keep them from getting on the subway or applying for a job or entering a restaurant or…
COMRADE DARRYL: That would be so totally cool! That would be so funny if some dude’s taking his girlfriend to have some crispy Szechuan fish…
COMRADE DUANE: God, I love crispy Szechuan fish!
COMRADE DARRYL: And when they scan his phone it goes, like, “WAAAH! DENIED! CAUSE YOU COMPLAINED TO THE PEOPLE’S GLORIOUS HOUSING AUTHORITY THREE YEARS AGO ABOUT YOUR TOILET BACKING UP INSTEAD OF SLIPPING A FEW YUAN TO THE SUPER LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!”
COMRADE DUANE: Ha ha! Right! And I was thinking, ok, what if…now this might sound crazy oppressive…
COMRADE DARRYL: No, go on, dude! Automated faceless oppression rocks!
COMRADE DUANE: Well what if we stole the points system from a gaming app and applied it…
COMRADE DARRYL: So if you’re caught participating in a demonstration you get dinged!
COMRADE DUANE: Yeah…but if you turn someone in for participating you earn points…
COMRADE DARRYL: Plus maybe free large fries!
COMRADE DUANE: And a large Coke, if they’re like a journalist! And everyone would start out at zero…
COMRADE DARRYL: Except Uighurs who start out at minus 1000…
COMRADE DUANE: Which would be so mean! But yeah! So basically we’re crowd-sourcing the terror state!
COMRADE DARRYL: And then we could tie in the whole thing to all the CCTV cameras in in the country!
COMRADE DUANE: Along with the facial recognition technology!
COMRADE DARRYL: Right! Call it the paperless police state! And then if the authorities need to, they could punch in someone’s ID and follow them online…
COMRADE DUANE: Yeah…like for example that totally hot babe who goes shopping at the fish market every Tuesday…
COMRADE DARRYL: You mean the one who lives on Hero Mao Avenue Section C Block 11 Building 5, 3rd floor north hallway number 12…
COMRADE DUANE: Dude, she is so hot! No, I mean the one who lives on Red Victory Boulevard Southwest Section F…
COMRADE DARRYL: Oh, right right right, the one with the awesome…
COMRADE DUANE: So we could get an alert whenever she’s going somewhere…
COMRADE DARRYL: And follow her on camera even when she goes into a People’s Designated Facility…
COMRADE DUANE: As a theoretical example of what the technology is capable of only! Because we would never…
COMRADE DARRYL: No, we fully respect the upright loyal sister comrades of the People’s…
COMRADE DUANE: We sure do!
COMRADE DARRYL: Funding won’t be a problem…I bet even those limp old geezers on the Central Committee will get a chubbie when they hear about this…
COMRADE DUANE: Dude, I just have one problem with this…do you think a system like this might ever be misused?
COMRADE DARRYL: You mean like, to harass good loyal citizens who have legitimate concerns about the state?
COMRADE DUANE: Right! Or that it might be abused by those who just want to consolidate their own power and quash their enemies?
COMRADE DARRYL: Or to more efficiently keep minorities out of decent jobs, housing and education?
COMRADE DUANE: Yeah, I guess that would never happen. [phone buzzes]. Wait, I’m getting a message. The police are on the way, dude…someone in our building just called the Central Committee “a bunch of limp old geezers!”
The Garden of Eaton 