Cisco Helping China Monitor Citizens?

In recent security camera news Cisco, along with a host of other western companies, is working with the Chinese government to install an outrageous 500,000 surveillance cameras in Chongqing, a very rapidly growing commercial and industrial metropolis.

In a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, it was cited that Cisco will supply the networking equipment required for the immense security camera system. The Chongqing government declined comment to the Wall Street Journal as did China's Ministry of Public Security and State Council Information Office.

There has yet to be a lot of information published in the West about the security camera system which has been given the title "Peaceful Chongqing". However, a notice on one of the city's news sites, Chongqing Currents, reports that a Peaceful Chongqing "mobilization and deployment meeting" was held back in March. The goal of this project is to make Chongqing "a city with good security, harmonious peace and safety for investment, and to provide stable society for promotion of the harmonious urban and rural development."

What is interesting is that Google's link to the original reference to Peaceful Chongqing in the Chongqing Currents just turns up a Chinese-language 404-error page. It is currently against the law to provide the Chinese government with crime-control products thanks to legislation passed after the uprising that was known as Tiananmen Square was crushed by Chinese troops. "The United States-China Act of 1991" was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, but was later vetoed by then-President George H. W. Bush.

It is difficult to determine what the law that was passed by Bush covers and what it doesn't. Fingerprinting equipment, for one, falls under the law where networking equipment for a security camera system is something a little different. Cisco flat out denies that it has stepped over the line in the Middle Kingdom. According to Cisco General Counsel Mark Chandler, "Cisco does not supply equipment to China that is customized in any way to facilitate ... surveillance of users. Cisco supports Freedom of Expression, an Open Internet and Human Rights."

Chandler's stand isn't entirely out of line, though the word "customized" is a little flimsy. However, an extremely repressive government that has a long and dark history and current practice of suppressing dissent and monitoring the behavior of its citizens could easily turn something as harmless as a Cat6 patch panel into an instrument of the government's watchful eye and iron fist.

Peaceful Chongqing is set to go live over the course of the next two to three years.

Source: The Register - Cisco drives epic Chinese surveillance network, says report

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World's Largest Security Camera Network to Go Up in China

Want to know where the world's largest network of security cameras is? Well, pretty soon it will be in China. Yes, that's right, the country with the biggest population in the world will now have the biggest security camera network says a recent report from the Daily Mail.

According to the report, China will spend an estimated $4.18 billion on 500,000 security cameras in order to create the world's largest security camera network. This marks the largest "Big Brother" network of CCTV surveillance cameras in the entire world since the events of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.

The city of Chongqing in China has been in charge of drawing up the plans for the network after an outbreak of religious groups began clashing in July of 2009. The cameras will be set up and installed in 2012 with the goals of reducing crime and enhancing rescue operations as well as emergency controls.

According to the Daily Mail, Police Chief of Chongqing Wang Zhijun said that the system would be the world's largest security network since the attacks on the United States in September of 2001. This camera system is poised to completely dwarf the current 40,000 camera system currently set up in China's Xinjiang region.

The entirety of the network will be managed by a single network that will allow authorities as well as emergency services in the area of over 30 million people to share the video feeds.

Authorities in China are increasingly enlisting technology for security reasons which was widely seen during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The government in China has expanded resources to police online activity and block anti-government postings as well as other politically sensitive material with a system known as the "Great Firewall of China".

Plans for the surveillance system surfaced after officials in the region announced plans to build 10 luxury inland river cruise ships large enough to accommodate landing pads for helicopters. So I guess when people say Big Brother is watching in China, they mean it literally.

Source: - Sify News - China to create world's largest security network with 500,000 cameras

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