We all know that the government of China has decided to keep an eye on the whereabouts and the activities of each of its citizen in the name of surveillance being conducted for National Integrity.
However, a recent hack conducted by a Dutch Cybersecurity specialist named Gevers says that the espionage activity has more to deal with, than what is being told to the citizens of China.
Last week, Gevers got access to Sensenets, a Chinese software database which revealed the real-time data of more than 2.5 million citizens mostly from Xinjiang. The database which includes images of the populace recorded through the facial recognition software is reported to have left unprotected for months.
So, the hacker got access to critical details such as names, birth dates, the individual’s employment status and details, their visits to places like mosques, restaurants and hotels and some other notes.
As the place of Xinjiang is filled with mostly minority people such as Muslims, the hacker deems the surveillance as a clear cut invasion into the populace’s privacy.
“If it would have been in Europe or US or even Canada, such activity would have invoked a backlash from the populace”, says Gevers.
However, a spokesperson from the Chinese Ministry supports the activity and said that it is being done to secure data for a social credit system to be officially introduced at some time this year.
News is out that the watchdog has already collected data of more than 3.6 million individuals and has blocked more than 17 thousand in 2018 from buying fast train and flight tickets- as they are deemed to be ‘untrustworthy’.
A highly placed source says that more than 11,000 individuals and 1400 companies have been banned from carrying out financial trade on a national and international note.
China has given a gist of the social credit system last year rating the citizens based on their daily behavior ranging from bank credit to their social media activities. The objective of such activity is to punish unlawful citizens in many ways as possible.
Note- China’s National Public Credit Information Center released its statistics yesterday and said that the government has decided to blacklist more than 14.21 million people as per their social credit systems behavioral score.
The post Chinese database hack reveals the grievances in Government surveillance appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.
February 20, 2019 at 10:51AM
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