Perspective: China’s alarming AI surveillance of Muslims should wake us up
Muslim men arrive at the Id Kah Mosque for the morning prayer on Eid al-Fitr in the old town of Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, June 26, 2017. By Tim Weinhold May 23 at 7:00 AM Tight control of civilian populations is the cardinal rule of authoritarian regimes, yet the sheer scale and complexity of those populations makes control difficult. Now, artificial intelligence has made civilian surveillance far easier, and far more invasive.
One reason Uighurs have a surveillance crosshairs on their collective foreheads is simple sectarian violence. Over the past few decades, China has been resettling members of the majority Han race in Xinjiang. A province that historically had been mostly Uighur is now split 50-50 with Han. In turn, race riots broke out some years back, and people were killed.
First, AI, especially facial recognition, allows authoritarian governments to surveil target populations to an extent previously unimaginable. This has already effectively immobilized the Uighurs, who are afraid to voice their true thoughts even to their closest family members. “What happens in Xinjiang and what happens to house churches is connected,” Eva Pils, a professor of law at King’s College London, who focuses on human rights, told the Guardian.
China is steadily progressing toward that goal. By 2020, analysts estimate the country will have installed nearly 300 million cameras, and police will be spending $30 billion per year on surveillance technology. Halmurat Harri, a Uighur activist now living in Finland, described the psychological impact of this pervasive surveillance, including near-constant police checks. “You feel like you are underwater,” he told Wired. “You cannot breathe. Every breath you take, you’re careful.”
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