China has already enforced some of the world’s strictest internet controls, but authorities believe these measures still require improvement. A new digital identity system, launched on July 15, increases the Chinese police’s ability to track their citizens’ online activities. The government and official media have promoted the system as a way to secure personal data against leaks and spam, but critics have argued that it guarantees even closer state surveillance and an exhaustive monitoring of each person’s online activities and opinions. Then, the debate disappeared and now only positive comments remain.
Chinese citizens already had to provide their real identities to access many sites − from social media to online shopping platforms − but until now, this verification had been carried out by the platforms themselves, which acted with the utmost zeal to comply with Beijing while the state monitored from behind the scenes. Internet users had to either take a photo of themselves with their identification card or enter their phone number, with SIM cards only issued after an in-store identity registration and facial recognition. Police already largely had the ability to know who was posting what and to impose sanctions, but the previous model was fragmented and scattered across different sites, which made it more complicated to piece together an individual’s full online activity.
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