China develops surveillance system to monitor foreigners in the country

Screenshot of a surveillance software dashboard that allows you to monitor foreigners
NetAskari
When a cybersecurity researcher known by the pseudonym NetAskari recently clicked on a tab titled "Journalists File Query" on an unsecured Chinese website, he expected to see a jumble of automatically generated fictitious data.
Instead, familiar faces appeared on the screen. It was a comprehensive database of almost all foreign journalists based in the Chinese capital Beijing around 2021, including official passport photos, private cell phone numbers, visa details and dates of birth. He also found his own personal information on this Chinese police watch list.
"It was more interesting than shocking," NetAskari told DW. "When you work as a journalist in China, you basically assume you're always on their radar. But what surprised me was simply how easily I was able to access this highly sensitive system."
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Granular system of social control in China
What NetAskari discovered is part of a system of "holographic profiles" of modern China. He had unknowingly accessed a demo version of a remote tracking system designed for the Public Security Bureau of Zhangjiakou, a city in Hebei Province that is hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics. 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For years, China operated the world's most extensive closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera network. A massive initiative known as the Xueliang (bright eyes) project seeks to unify these isolated islands of surveillance spread across the country.
The system is capable of tracking connections between people
NetAskari
The data on the Zhangjiakou police dashboard shows the level of detail with which authorities can track an individual. This system no longer relies exclusively on police cameras on street corners. It accurately records the specific train carriage and seat number a target occupies when arriving from Beijing or Shanghai.
It even syncs photos taken by facial recognition turnstiles at local ski resorts directly into its tracking engine. The movements of the researcher's acquaintances who recently skied in Zhangjiakou were precisely flagged and mapped with detailed trajectories in the system.
"The idea is simply to process as much data as possible from as many sensors as possible in real time," the researcher noted.
The system records daily behaviors such as gasoline consumption, regular shopping locations, and whether an individual frequently visits "petition areas."This massive data fusion effort attempts to piece together a person's physical whereabouts, spending habits, and digital footprints in an impeccable "holistic personnel file."
Tracking foreign journalists
Within this increasingly airtight network, foreigners - especially journalists and citizens of Western countries - have been most closely watched by authorities.
Statistics from the system's "smart reporting" show that Chinese security agencies focus disproportionately on citizens of countries in the group known as the Five Eyes, which includes the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Behind the scenes of the system, certain Foreign journalists are given a special real-time tracking tag called "traceable". The moment they enter a jurisdiction, the system can automatically trigger early alerts to police.

For independent journalism in China, this poses an existential threat.
In the past, foreign reporters traveling to sensitive regions like Xinjiang often relied on experience to outwit plainclothes police officers following them in the rearview mirror. Now, algorithmic updates to the police system have made this traditional game of cat and mouse obsolete. "They no longer need to send two or three cars to follow you", highlights NetAskari.
Names, faces and locations of foreigners are recorded by the system
NetAskari
As the system has access to mobile payments, ticket purchases and social networks, authorities can accurately predict the itinerary of the observed individual, ensuring that they only see what they want. If the data network detects interaction with certain individuals, the police can simply call and intimidate the journalists' sources, practically making journalistic investigation impossible.
The system knows where you will be
What really transforms this surveillance is the system's ability to group analysis and model relationships. Traditional tracking requires immense police resources. But modern "smart policing" attempts to visualize interpersonal relationships through algorithms.
At the core of the dashboard, the system automatically generates complex network graphs based on how often targets are captured interacting on video, revealing exactly who knows who and how much time they spend together.
This technology has been in development for years. In 2019, Chinese tech giant Hisense filed a patent for "holistic relationship models for people involved in affairs", which aimed to map travel, call logs and vehicle usage. In 2025, the Putao Public Security Bureau in Shanghai awarded a $200,000 contract for a "holistic personnel filing system." Palantir. But as researcher NetAskari points out, the comparison with China's authoritarian system only goes so far.
"In Western democracies, there are debates. In China, these debates simply don't exist. The police and the Ministry of State Security do what they want with relatively little oversight."
NetAskari asserted that in this system, people are reduced to numbers, patterns, and vector operations. They become "a 'mass of data' that can be controlled, shaped and coerced as necessary".
Author: De Zheng
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