Can We See Our Future in China’s Cameras?; The New York Times, June 23, 2025

Megan K. Stack , The New York Times; Can We See Our Future in China’s Cameras?

"The Chinese Communist Party famously uses surveillance to crush dissent and, increasingly, is applying predictive algorithms to get ahead of both crimes and protest. People who screen as potential political agitators, for example, can be prevented from stepping onto trains bound for Beijing. During the Covid pandemic, Chinese health authorities used algorithmic contact tracing and QR codes to block people suspected of viral exposure from entering public spaces. Those draconian health initiatives helped to mainstream invasive surveillance and increase biometric data collection.

It would be comforting to think that China has created a singular dystopia, utterly removed from our American reality. But we are not as different as we might like to think.

Thankfully, our political architecture lacks a unified power structure akin to the C.C.P. Americans — who tend to value individual liberties over collective well-being — have deeply embedded rights which, at least theoretically, protect us from such abuses."