I read an interesting write-up in ‘International Herald Tribune’ – which states, “At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software to recognize automatically the faces of crime suspects and detect unusual activity.” Sounds great, I agree that times are quite difficult and one needs to do everything that helps in protecting one’s citizens -- even UK has something on the similar lines.

But, the flipside, we are talking about the red nation -- China here -- full of hardcore communists -- who can go to any extent to see that Tiananmen Square (no discordant voice is heard) is not repeated. Let’s see how will this technology help detect criminals (opponents of communist regime) -- “the residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips (programmed by the same company) will be issued to most citizens (especially the 150 million people, largely peasants, who have moved to a city).

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen's name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord's phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China's "one child" policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.” This card will help in monitoring people’s movement and activities.

According to me China is doing what it does the best “gag” in disguise of “officially fighting crime and developing better controls on an increasingly mobile population.” In Britain also after the terrorist attack, the police installed surveillance cameras widely on lampposts and in Underground stations and are developing face recognition software as well. Though it has received its own share of brickbats but being a democracy -- which values human rights and freedom of speech -- things do not look so frightening.

The company incorporated in Florida-- China Public Security -- is helping China keep an eye on its people with the use of technologies built by American technology companies. In the past also -- Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems have bent their rules to please the communist government -- so that ethics are compromised but business goes on.

Are computer technologies meant to make people’s life comfortable or are they fast becoming tools to curb people’s freedom? It seems, more than two decades later, we are moving towards a future as mentioned in that nauseating book -- “1984”. The day I read Orwell’s 1984, -- I had this eerie feeling that someone is watching me -- all this large-scale surveillance in China gives me the same nightmarish feeling. Chinese people do not deserve an “Orwellian Big Brother Watching” fate.

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