All across China, the debate is erupting. With the latest high-tech spying equipment proliferating, and with an estimated 200,000 surveillance cameras installed in Shanghai alone, Chinese citizens are beginning to fight back. For the first time, they are asserting the newfound notion of privacy.
Until recently, China’s Communist regime could control its population with police agents and its ubiquitous neighbourhood committees.
But today’s Chinese urban population is far too mobile to be easily watched.