China surveillance policies follow facial recognition spread along Silk Road

By Frank Hersey

Chinese technologies and tactics to tackle dissent and control internet use are spreading to countries along its Digital Silk Road, according to activists speaking to the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters.

They fear that China itself may be amassing data.

The TRF report includes the case of people protesting job losses at a Hong Kong-listed casino in Phnom Penh, where drones hovered above them as they spoke out.

Cambodian activists say they are under constant surveillance by technology supplied by China via digital surveillance packages.

Activists state that the technologies are deployed without a legal framework or public consultation.

They claim that technologies such as AI facial recognition were used to discriminate against Uyghurs in innovative city projects in China.

The Digital Silk Road is part of the more oversized Belt and Road Initiative to raise China’s global status via grand infrastructure projects, aid, and political support.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Digital Silk Road focuses on improving recipients’ telecommunications networks, e-commerce, smart cities, surveillance, and helping China’s companies export their technologies to recipient countries.

Cambodia signed a deal with China for biometric surveillance and DNA screening equipment in 2021, reported VOA.

China has installed more than a thousand CCTV cameras in Phnom Penh since 2015. A government spokesperson told TRF that the surveillance equipment is for fighting crime.

The country is building a system similar to China’s internet firewall to block websites.

Cambodia is also developing a digital biometric ID and civil registry system.

In Myanmar, Chinese firms are building 4G and 5G networks and facial recognition systems. The junta has copied China’s cyber laws, such as blocking Facebook and Twitter.

Activists there fear that facial recognition is targeting protestors.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), a Washington D.C. think-tank, estimates that Chinese AI surveillance technologies are now being implemented in more than 50 countries that are part of the BRI.

ASD, another U.S. think-tank, is concerned that China is collecting data via these systems.

Similar concerns were recently raised much further along the Silk Road from Beijing, with Serbia’s Safe City project raising fears at home and abroad.