The Chinese government has always been a big proponent of surveying their citizens, but the crisis that is Covid-19 has given them an excuse to monitor their citizens even more than they have been in recent times. This CNN article details the current happenings in China. The article describes the story of an Irish man named Ian Lahiffe who lives in China, and the day that he found a camera being posted up outside of his apartment facing straight at his door. The Covid crisis has allowed the Chinese government to justify their incredible invasion of privacy. According to the article, the Chinese government actually does not have any formal laws regarding the use of surveillance cameras, but they are already a regular part of life in China with the monitoring and social credit systems that they have in place. However, I feel that this is a new step of invasion by the government. The social credit system and surveillance in public I feel is very different than putting cameras directly outside people’s houses, or even in them. I do not think that this crisis justifies that amount of surveillance, and China is on pace to have six times as many surveillance cameras than the United States. Even though the addition of these cameras is an incredible invasion of personal privacy, I find it hard to believe that anyone will actually stop the Chinese government from doing this.
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