China using tech as tool to monitor citizens: Reports

Technologically-advanced China and its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, are "committed to the production and use of technology that controls and surveils its population," Chairman Robin Cleveland and Vice Chairman Carolyn Bartholomew of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told Fox News in a joint statement this week.

"The decision to use these tools of repression is politically motivated to sustain the Party."

Surveillance -- or simply spying -- has become a booming business in the world's most populated country with scores of tech start-ups moving in to meet the market demand with the government's encouragement.

But human rights activists say that the enterprise has quickly become a critical apparatus for suppression and abuses, especially on minority groups, reports Fox News.

The system in play is quietly called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), which has the ability to audit entire populations, the news channel reported.

According to Joseph Humire, Executive Director for the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), Xinjiang serves as the "central nervous system of surveillance" in China, which is an IJOP that prompts you to enter identifying information, such as when you grow a beard, leave your house, or your blood type, etc.

"These apps try to determine your pattern of life, and if Chinese authorities determine any change in your pattern of life, they come to visit you," he told Fox News.

An expert said the country is targeting the whole population with the focus on anyone who has independent thinking.

Xiaoxu "Sean" Lin, a microbiologist and activist/spokesperson for the Washington-based Falun Dafa Association told Fox News: "Many technologies are involved in facial recognition including Facial Action Unit analysis, facial expression recognition, deep neuro network analysis, facial muscle movement recognition, topographic modeling, deep machine learning and supercomputer technologies." 

Humire also pointed out that there is approximately one CCTV camera for every six citizens in China, "which makes China the most surveilled country in the world."