China is attempting to
build a big data platform to predict terrorist acts before they take place. The
chief engineer for the military contractor told reporters that although it is
extremely important to examine the cause of an act of terror, it is even more
important “to predict the upcoming activities” to stop acts of terror before
they take place. In order to accomplish this, the Communist Party directed one
of China’s largest defense contractors, “China Electronics Technology Group, to
develop software to collate data on jobs, hobbies, consumption habits, and
other behavior of ordinary citizens” to help predict future terrorist acts. By
using its extensive surveillance, China will permit authorities to profile
individual citizens based upon certain results, such as what is found on their online behaviors, financial transactions, where they go, and who
they see.
The bottom line is that
China is building a data analytics platform to attempt to help the leaders in
China better identify terrorists before they strike. The system being put into
place is meant to watch for surprising transfers of money, calls across seas by
citizens with no relatives outside the country, and other possible events that
might indicate they were plotting an illegal action. In my opinion this article
overlooked the privacy and security concerns that could potentially come with
this substantial surveillance. Although the article did not go into any detail
about it, I think it is important to explain the impact that could be had on
the average citizen of China as a result of this extreme surveillance. Another
issue I saw with what China is doing is that it does not seem like this will
stop terrorists from other countries from coming into China, since all the data
being collected is on their own citizens. Although neither article went into detail
about it, I would think that this big data platform would have a positive
impact on crime in China, but not so much for terrorism.
Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-03/china-tries-its-hand-at-pre-crime
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/china-is-building-a-big-data-plaform-for-precrime/
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