China’s Border Guards Are Reportedly Installing Surveillance Apps On Phones Of Tourists

As you might have heard, applicants for US visas are now required to provide their social media information during the application process. Presumably, this is used as a means of a background check of sorts, to see what kind of people are applying for visas and if there might be anything in their social media to indicate that they could be a threat to national security.

Some have railed against this, claiming it to be an invasion of privacy, but it seems that over in China, it’s a whole different story. A report from The Guardian has revealed that in China, border police are reportedly secretly installing surveillance apps on the phones of visitors who are entering the region of Xinjiang, especially if they are coming in from Kyrgyzstan.

These surveillance apps are said to be capable of extracting emails, text messages, and contacts. According to Edin Omanović who is part of the campaign group Privacy International, he has found this to be “highly alarming in a country where downloading the wrong app or news article could land you in a detention camp.”

For those unfamiliar with what’s going on in China right now, there have been allegations that the Chinese government has been rounding up Muslims and placing them into what the government calls “re-education camps”. The installation of surveillance apps is said to be part of it where it searches against content that authorities view as “problematic”.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: China, Legal, Privacy, Security