With the rising threat of terrorism, citizens everywhere seem more than willing to give up personal freedoms in exchange for greater security. China is the first nation to implement a technologically advanced tracking system to monitor citizens and deter illegal activity.

Coordinating such large-scale surveillance is impossible without a technologically advanced infrastructure. The technology is developed by China Public Security (English), who plans to use a network of 20,000 police surveillance cameras in Shenzhen to detect unusual activity. Additionally, mandatory residency cards are provided, each encoded with a citizen’s name, address, work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status, reproductive history (to enforce China’s “one child” policy), and landlord’s phone number. That’s quite a bit of information.

There are a number of concerns about the politics of large-scale surveillance. The VP for investors relations at China Public Security, Michael Lin himself, says “If they do not get the permanent card, they cannot live here, they cannot get government benefits, and that is a way for the government to control the population in the future.”

It certainly sounds ominous. In a country like China, where government transparency is nearly non-existent, implementing such a technology is dangerous.

More at News.com.

Technorati Tags: Shenzhen, China Public Security