Sky News Australia, 16 August 2020

Below is an article published by Sky News.

Mass surveillance programs on ethnic minorities in central China is likely “an extension” of similar treatment of the Uighurs being deployed on a larger scale in the communist nation according to former cyber security contractor Robert Potter.

Sky News host Sharri Markson has revealed a major security leak which has uncovered the Chinese government’s surveillance of yet another ethnic minority group.

Ms Markson on her program on Sky News has revealed how Chinese activists have now uncovered a new facial recognition database targeting an ethnic minority group.

This surveillance database is targeting the Tujia and Miao Autonomous Zone in the city of Tongren in central southern China via facial recognition from building access systems.

Mr Potter told Sky News there are four different systems operating in the region, with approximately 110,000 people being targeted by this mass privacy breach.

“Every person that’s in this database has been a victim of a breach of privacy,” he said.

“This has now been used to regulate their private lives”.

Chinese security threats expert Christopher Balding said the revelations raise significant questions about the Communist Party’s scope of control.

“It clearly raises a whole host of questions about the level of control that Beijing is extending in the Xinjiang model to the rest of China,” he said.