China tests car tracking and threat prediction platform

The Chinese city of Shenzhen is going to track 200,000 cars in certain classes with electronic IDs. If the test phase is successful, the city also wants to follow private cars. China is also working on a platform for predictive policing.

Initially, the pilot will only be carried out with heavy trucks, school buses and vehicles that transport hazardous substances, Reuters reports. According to the news agency, the Chinese government previously conducted pilot projects in Shenzen, which has 46 million inhabitants, before they were rolled out nationwide. The pilot is being carried out by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp., which eventually wants to be able to track vehicles in real-time with the electronic IDs. The company reports that this can be used to combat illegal practices and to gain insight into data for smart traffic applications.

However, the plan also raises privacy questions, given that the Chinese government has been trying to register the real names of all Chinese internet users for some time, Reuters reported. Last year, de Volkskrant reported that the country wants to provide every citizen with a ‘credit score’, based on someone’s financial creditworthiness, possible criminal record and behavior on social media. In addition, China is working on a system that should predict where and when security threats can occur, Bloomberg reports.

That system collects, for example, data about the job, hobbies and purchasing behavior of citizens and on the basis of this it carries out an analysis of the likelihood of a terrorist act by that person. The Chinese government uses techniques that have been developed in America as ‘predictive policing’. The system, which is being developed by China Electronics Technology, will co-exist with the secret file kept by the government on every citizen since the Mao period.

A company spokesperson said in December that the system is not a ‘big data platform’, but a ‘united information environment’, Ars Technica reports. However, it is not clear what exactly the difference between the two should be. The first tests with the system would take place in areas where there is opposition to the communist regime, according to an unofficial spokesperson for China Electronics Technology.

A new anti-terror law was also passed in China at the end of December, requiring companies to provide assistance in detecting terrorist crimes. The legislation also contains a decryption obligation, under which companies can be obliged to remove encryption from encrypted data.