Security officials in China's Henan province commissioned a $782,000 AI-powered surveillance system using 3,000 facial recognition cameras to track journalists, international students, and other 'suspicious people', with the system designed to alert authorities and enable physical intervention against targeted individuals.
In July 2021, Henan Province's Public Security Department issued a tender for a surveillance system designed to track journalists, international students, and other individuals deemed suspicious. The system uses 3,000 facial recognition cameras connected to national and regional databases to compile individual files on persons of interest. Chinese tech company Neusoft was awarded the 5 million yuan ($782,000) contract on September 17, 2021, with a requirement to complete the system within two months. The system categorizes journalists into red, yellow, and green risk levels and triggers warnings when they register at hotels, buy tickets, or cross provincial borders. The tender specified that 'suspicious persons must be tailed and controlled' and journalists 'dealt with according to their category.' The system operates using Huawei Cloud services and FusionInsight technology, implementing 'one person, one file' AI technology for real-time surveillance analysis. At least 2,000 officials and police officers operate the system across Henan province, which has 99 million inhabitants. The tender was issued days after foreign journalists covering devastating floods in Henan were targeted by nationalist harassment campaigns on social media. Public access to the tender document was disabled after Reuters and IPVM reported on the system.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns, malicious surveillance, or targeted and sophisticated automated censorship and propaganda, with the aim of manipulating political processes, public opinion, and behavior.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed