Protest movement in China | How the police tracked down the protesters

When Zhang went to demonstrate against China’s strict COVID-19 policies in Beijing on Sunday, he thought he had prepared to go unnoticed.

He wore a balaclava and goggles to cover his face. When it seemed to him that plainclothes police were following him, he took refuge in the bushes and put on a new jacket. He escaped the spinning. That night, when Zhang, in his twenties, returned home without being arrested, he thought he was out of danger.

But the police called the next day. She knew he was out because she could detect his phone was in the protest area, she told him. Twenty minutes later, when he hadn’t told them where he lived, three officers knocked on his door.

Similar stories have been told by protesters across China this week, according to interviews with those targeted and human rights groups that follow the cases.

As authorities seek to hunt down, intimidate and detain those who defied the government’s tough COVID-19 policies last weekend, they are turning to powerful surveillance tools the state has spent the past decade to be built for times like this, when part of the population comes forward and questions the authority of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Police used facial recognition, phones and informants to identify those who took part in the protests. In general, she forces those she tracks down to commit to no longer demonstrating. Protesters, who are often not used to being tracked, said they were baffled by how they were discovered.

For fear of further repercussions, many have taken down foreign platforms and apps like Telegram, used to coordinate and broadcast footage of the protests overseas.

Sprawling Oversight

Chinese police have set up one of the most sophisticated surveillance systems in the world. She hung cameras by the millions on street corners and building entrances. She bought powerful facial recognition software and programmed it to identify citizens who live nearby. Special software aggregates the data and images that are collected.

Although the establishment of the surveillance system is not a secret, for many Chinese it seems distant. Police use it more often to hunt down dissidents, ethnic minorities and migrant workers. Many people support him thinking that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. The interrogations of the past week could shake this idea.

It is the first time that state surveillance has directly targeted large numbers of middle-class people in China’s wealthier cities. While many have experience with censorship – and proved this week that they sometimes get around it – a visit by the police to their homes is less common and more intimidating.

China’s “Big Brother” technology is never extinguished, and the government hopes it will now show its effectiveness in quelling unrest, he added.

The marches and demonstrations were among the largest and most openly politicized since those in 1989, which Beijing suppressed with deadly military force in Tiananmen Square. Today, Chinese authorities can quell unrest by using cutting-edge technology to target the most outspoken organizers and disaffected and detain them. Fans and spectators often get away with a severe threat.

The new face of repression

Zhang’s experience is not uncommon. If he knew the facial recognition cameras that clutter Chinese public spaces, he had underestimated the telephone tracers. These devices, tiny boxes with antennae, are much harder to detect. Mimicking a cell phone tower, they connect to the phones of all passers-by and log data for police to verify.

Nevertheless, Zhang, who like other protesters interviewed for this article declined to give his full name for fear of police reprisals, was lucky. After a tough interrogation and a warning not to take part in a demonstration anymore, the police left his apartment.

He said the ordeal had “terrified” him and he believed it would be effective in dampening the momentum the rallies had generated. “It’s going to be very difficult to mobilize people again,” he said. “At this point, people will leave the streets. »

For others, it was their face that betrayed them. One man, Wang, who joined protests in Beijing, said he received a warning call from police two days after Sunday’s rally. He was told that he had been identified using facial recognition technologies.

Unlike other protesters in Beijing, Wang did not cover his face with a hat or sunglasses, and he took off his medical mask at one point during the protest. He said he was not surprised that the police were able to identify him, but that the use of this technology made him uncomfortable. “I knew the risks of going to such a gathering,” he said. “If they want to find us, they can definitely find us. »

The phone call only lasted 10 minutes, but the policeman did his best to intimidate him: “He made it clear that there would be no second chances. »

After being arrested or approached by police, many protesters have given up using VPNs (virtual private networks) or other foreign apps and platforms like Telegram and Signal. They fear, they say, that now that they are in the crosshairs of the authorities, the software they use on their phones will come under closer scrutiny, leading to greater police scrutiny and possible detention.

Between deterrence and intimidation

For many protesters, the shock of identification worked as an intimidation tactic in its own right.

A woman named Wang, a filmmaker in her twenties, said she joined a group of friends in Beijing on Sunday evening. Together, they took precautions: they covered their faces with medical masks, took a taxi several miles away and walked to the site of a vigil. Even though they had been warned to turn off their phone, they just turned off GPS and Face ID.

She and her friends were surprised when several of them received phone calls or visits from the police. Some were forced to help the police in their investigation by going to the station.

“I think my friends, if there’s a next time, won’t dare to go,” she said.

Still, Wang managed to slip through the cracks. That night, she used a phone whose number was not linked to systems that could identify her, such as the country’s health code software used to track COVID-19 cases and ensure that people get tested regularly in outbreak areas.

She was not discouraged by her experience.

“I’m going to go anyway; if the police find me, we will see,” she said. Asked if she would go to a public gathering again, she added: “I just think you have to go. »

This article was originally published in the New York Times.