Ostensibly to control traffic congestion, Chinese authorities is unveiling a new plan to track residents via their cell phones. From Thenextweb:
Purportedly to improve Beijing’s public travel and reduce traffic congestion, the new initiative, literally translated as “Platform for Citizen Movement Information” proposes to track each individual citizen’s movement in real time via cell phone signals, as reported in the Beijing Municipal People’s Government website.
Li Guoguang, Deputy Director of Social Development believes that cellular location technology for real-time user tracking is an efficient way to establish a public information platform for travelling. Whenever a user switches on their phone, it will automatically transmit signals to the base station and the government can easily determine the user’s location and general direction. Using this data, combined with dynamic analysis, the staff will be able to target specific areas at different times and track the general flow of travel and population distribution.
See also an article from Fast Company.
