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Confirm a friend, Catch a crook, or Betray your neighbors: China's surveillance state goes mobile
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News and Politics :: Sino-Taiwanese :: Human rights and personal freedoms :: News and Perspectives ::
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posted Saturday, 18 February 2006
As of this year, China's infamous “Big Brother”; the surveillance state that monitors and tracks the activities of the Chinese people, now has a younger sibling. A service that allows private Chinese citizens to verify the identities of their friends and neighbors using their ID card and a cell phone.
The system, provided by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, allows members of the public to send a person's full name and the number from their ID card to a government service center via SMS.
If the number and name match a genuine ID card, the user will receive a confirmation message. If the number and name do not match a valid ID card, then they will receive a message informing them that the person is using a fake ID card.
At present, the system is limited to identity verification, allowing a search to be made only if you posses both a persons name and their ID card number, and returning a fake/genuine message but no personal details.
A secondary system, for those with multimedia telephones, is also set to be available to the greater populace. This system will allow the user to view a photograph of the card holder if their name and number match, allowing them to visually identify that the person presenting the ID card is who they say they are, for extra security
Each SMS will cost 5 Yuan for an identity that is verified. The fee, however, will be waived if the ID card in question is found to be fake.
An additional online service is also available through the internet.
The surveillance State
Although the provision of the SMS ID card verification service, and its online cousin, has been welcomed by a number of groups - including retailers, hoteliers, and employers - as being a vital move to ensure that people are not deceived by those seeking to fraudulently obtain goods on credit, to evade state detection when traveling, or to work illegally, it has however been seen with distrust by activists and industry insiders.
As such, some observers have criticized the system; complaining that it is an additional invasion of privacy in a country where people are already forced to show their ID card for routine activities like using a web cafe, and voicing that its very existence creates an air of mistrust that could be dangerous.
Concerns have also been voiced over possible cases of mistaken identity, in which an SMS user accidentally mistypes an ID card number, or mistakes one character in a persons name for another similar character when entering it. Thereby receives a false alert, warning them that a genuine ID card is a counterfeit.
Similarly there are fears over errors in the system, which has already been shown to have incorrectly allowed the same ID card number to be issued several times to several people in the past.
User Beware
On top of concerns over the privacy of ID card holders, some observers have have also been voiced concern over the impact of such a system on the user. Concerns which center on the fact that the person performing an identity check over SMS automatically reveals their own identity to the state.
Revealing their ID while making an ID enquire makes a user liable to be detained for questioning if they discover a fake ID card, or if they check on the ID of somebody in whom the state is taking a particular interest.
Under Chinese law, a person who checked on the ID of a person carrying a false ID could be imprisoned as an accomplice, or for subversive activities, if security forces 'were not happy' with any answers that they gave, or if they believed that they were withholding information about the individual whose ID card was found to be counterfeit.
I know what the state knows
In addition to concerns over the system and its use, there have been strong feelings over security of both the SMS and online ID card verification systems.
Concern that is particularly valid as it has not yet been confirmed whether the computer system behind the online ID card verification service contains only the card holders basic details, or if it contains other information, such as their home addresses, a log of their recent movements, or state security instructions for their detention.
This lack of transparency has heightened fears over what may happen if the system's database is compromised by hackers, and has created the fears that any compromise could potentially reveal in depth personal information that could be used in the construction of false identities and identity cards for criminals, or exploited in the committal of other crimes.
Concern that the database might contain other personal information, and that such information might be vulnerable to online threats, comes as the fear of so-called 'Identity Theft' grow to near epidemic proportions in some wester countries, and several years after it was revealed that Japan's national “Alien Registration” database; the electronic system that carries the identities of all registered foreigners in Japan, was penetrated by computer hackers. Exposing the personal details of countless legal aliens to criminal scrutiny.
Protect the Nation - Betray your family and friends
Those interested in verifying the identities of their friends, family and workmates, can do so by SMSing their details to 1069-5110 or 9951 (China Unicom only).
Multimedia information can be obtained from sms.id5.cn or wap.id5.cn.
A web based service is available at http://www.id5.cn
The database is purported to cover 29 of the 33 regions and territories officially claimed by China.
For obvious reasons, which were not made clear by the Beijing, but which are clear to China watchers, the verification system does not include ID cards for citizens of Chinese-Taiwan.
View Comments/Add a Comment (6)
1. chinochano left...
Sunday, 19 February 2006 2:21 am :: http://chinochano.aclblog.com
dui bu qi, wo jiade diannao mei you hanzi, suoyi zhihao xie pinyin. Wo
zhende yiwei ni xie zai wode dianzi riji de shihou shi yong zidong fanyiqi
fanyide. Biru shuo, zhiyou yige zidongde neng fanyi "fan" cheng
"ventilador".
2. ACB left...
Sunday, 19 February 2006 2:53 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com
Ironically, having learnt to read Chinese characters, but not learnt all of
the pronunciations from pinyin, I actually need to a dictionary to
understand this.
3. ACB left...
Sunday, 19 February 2006 2:55 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com
Challange (sort of) well met my friend.
4. maria left...
Sunday, 19 February 2006 7:24 am
对不起, 我解得电脑没有汉字, 所以只好写拼音. 我真的以为你写得在我的电子日记的时候是用自动翻译的. 比如说, 只有一个自动的能翻译 "fan" 成
"ventilador". 我很喜欢你的电子日记的地图, 所以我也放了一个在我的. 谢谢你写了一些句字在CHINOCHANO, 希望未来在来.
5. ACB left...
Sunday, 19 February 2006 5:32 pm :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com
I'm not fluent in Spanish, so I need to use a dictionary, which will throw
up the same problems as a translation matrix.