Police State 2.0

The Great Firewall of China, also known as Golden Shield, is set for an upgrade.1.3 billion Chinese can expect their mobile phone and Internet activity to be monitored, while a national ID card and intelligent CCTV system will track their movement through the country, The Guardian reports today.Golden Shield might seem a shade too close to an Orwellian dystopia to many in the west, but the Chinese argue that their security measures are inspired by US and European technological developments that emerged in the wake of 9/11.London's 0.5 million surveillance cameras helped to identify those responsible for terrorist attacks on the city in 2005. The Chinese city of Shenzen currently boasts some 200,000 cameras but with cities like London as a model, that number could soon rise to two million.That's too many to possibly rely on humans to analyse everything they see. Chinese researchers are already working on software to automatically detect suspicious behaviour, such as the gathering of unusually large numbers of people, and alert police.But western researchers have been working on similar technology for years. UK researchers have been funded to build systems that spot "suspicious" activity, in 2006, US researchers came up with vision software to automatically distinguish violent behaviours like punches from friendly ones like hugs, and just last week we reported on an EU project to have automated video surveillance in planes.When it comes to monitoring citizens, it seems that the enlightened West has a lot to teach China.Colin Barras, online technology reporter