My Take | The future of surveillance tech is already here – in the US, not China
Chinese citizens enjoy public safety in exchange for compromised privacy. In the United States, people are facing an increasingly unchecked state
Out of story ideas about China? One default topic for Western hacks is to warn against the repressive nature of China’s pervasive “hi-tech” public surveillance. But a recent one in The New York Times takes the cake.
Forgive the long quote, but it helps to fill up column space. It’s also necessary to show the person’s pathos or value system. I don’t know. But here goes:
“I heard some surprising refrains on my recent travels through China. ‘Leave your bags here,’ a Chinese acquaintance or tour guide would suggest when I ducked off the streets into a public bathroom. ‘Don’t worry,’ they’d say and shrug when I temporarily lost sight of my young son in the crowds.
“The explanation always followed: ‘Nobody will do anything,’ they’d say knowingly. Or: ‘There’s no crime.’ And then, always: ‘There are so many cameras!’ I couldn’t imagine such blasé faith in public safety back when I last lived in China, in 2013, but on this visit it was true: Cameras gawked from poles, flashed as we drove through intersections, lingered on faces as we passed through stations or shops.”
The writer, an American, is troubled. “I felt that I’d gotten a taste of our own American future,” she wrote. “Wasn’t this, after all, the logical endpoint of an evolution already under way in America?”
Oh dear! In fact, high-resolution public security cameras with facial recognition features are so yesterday’s tech.
The Times article is titled, “Can we see our future in China’s cameras?” Well, no, lady, you want to see your future, go back to your own country.