In Sign of Resistance, Chinese Balk at Using Apps to Snitch on Neighbors
In Sign of Resistance, Chinese Balk at Using Apps to
Snitch on Neighbors
New technology rewards citizens for notifying authorities
about illegal activity, domestic disputes and other problems, but people are
wary of using it
In the eastern China port of Xiamen, an app gives citizen
informants points that can be exchanged for mobile-phone data.
By Jeremy Page and Eva Dou Dec. 29, 2017 11:48 a.m. ET
Mao Zedong once hailed Fengqiao in eastern China as a
model for “mobilizing the masses” to galvanize Communist Party rule. Under
President Xi Jinping, there is an app for that.
Launched in Zhejiang province last year, it offers
citizens rewards for information as part of a new government effort to meld
old-school totalitarian techniques with 21st century e-commerce, big data and
digital surveillance.
There’s just one problem: Many people are wary of using
the new technology platform.
The “Safe Zhejiang” app enables users to notify authorities
of problems ranging from leaky drains and domestic disputes to traffic
violations and illegal publications, in text or photographic form, as long as
the informants reveal their location and identity.
In exchange, they get perks including discounts at
upmarket coffee shops and coupons for taxi-hailing and music-streaming
services, as well as for the Alipay online-payment system, run by the financial
affiliate of local tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Informants Wanted
Government apps offer rewards to citizens for notifying
authorities of problems ranging from domestic disputes to illegal activity.
Safe Zhejiang
Population of Zhejiang: 55.9 million
Safe Zhejiang users: 5 million
Launched in August 2016
Average user rating: 1.8
Rewards: Mobile data, store discounts
and coupons, goods from online retailers
Safe Jiangsu
Population of Jiangsu: 80 million
Safe Jiangsu users: 1.9 million
Launched in May 2017
Average user rating: 1.2
Rewards: Electronic goods
Chaoyang Masses
Population of Chaoyang: 3.9 million
Chaoyang Masses users: 60,000
Launched in August 2016
Average user rating: 3.5
Rewards: Cash
Xiamen People
Population of Xiamen: 3.9 million
Xiamen People users: 650,000
Launched in May 2016
2017
2016
Average user rating: 1.7
Rewards: Mobile data
Note: User numbers are Chinese government-issued
estimates
Sources: App Annie (ratings and launch dates); Chinese
state media (user numbers)
Fengqiao, a township of some 80,000 people in Zhejiang,
is being hailed nationwide as a showcase for the platform. Resistance so far
has been stiff, principally from citizens who resent being forced to use a
surveillance tool, or fear official retribution for voicing their concerns. For
some, it smacks of the Mao era, when the party gathered detailed files on
citizens and incentivized them to inform on each other.
There also has been pushback from some local officials
eager to control the flow of information, lest it be used against them by rival
bureaucrats and superiors.
“It’s a process,” says Zhou Yuchi, an official in charge
of the project in Fengqiao. “We can get people to download it. Whether they are
using it or not is another question.”
Chinese people generally appear less concerned about data
privacy than most Westerners. The lukewarm reception to the apps, however,
suggests there are limits to how far they will willingly submit to China’s
expanding surveillance state, and that many aren’t prepared to volunteer
information to the government.
That puts Beijing in a bind. It wants to preserve party
rule with the help of technology that allows it to keep closer tabs on
citizens, while also appearing responsive to their needs. If experiments such
as the apps fail, the party might rely more on the kind of intrusive surveillance
technology it has pioneered in its Muslim northwest, where residents run a
gantlet of checkpoints, cameras and scanners checking ID cards, faces and
eyeballs.
China already is building one of the world’s most
sophisticated systems for monitoring its citizens covertly using
facial-recognition cameras, customer data from big technology companies and a
nascent “social credit” system that rates online and real world behavior.
The party leadership now wants citizens to volunteer
information that would allow the state to monitor them even more closely,
discourage them from protesting or petitioning, and create vast pools of data
on public grievances and local officials’ performance.
Apps like Safe Zhejiang are being rolled out in many
cities and provinces, with plans to integrate and cross-reference the
information obtained with other data sets and video-surveillance footage,
according to people involved in the apps.
An app offering points that could be exchanged for
electronic goods launched this year in Jiangsu province. Another in the eastern
port of Xiamen gives informants points that can be exchanged for mobile-phone
data. One in Beijing’s Chaoyang district gives cash rewards.
An app in Beijing’s Chaoyang District offers cash rewards
for information given to police, seen here appealing for tip-offs about fake
taxis.
Those too have struggled to attract users other than
government officials, according to people involved in developing or managing
the apps and dozens of residents of the places where they are operated.
“The problem is people aren’t participating in these
things willingly, and they need to be for the party to achieve its objectives,”
says Samantha Hoffman, a research consultant for the London-based International
Institute for Strategic Studies who recently completed a Ph.D. thesis on social
management in China.
The party has talked of developing an automated
social-management system since the 1980s, when it began computerizing official
data and seeking new ways to control society after economic reforms brought
Mao’s totalitarian governance model to an end.
Since the early 2000s, the party has steadily expanded a
“grid management” system that divides communities into units of around 300
households—each overseen by a “grid manager” who visits each one regularly—and
gathers a broad range of data on residents’ lives.
Under President Xi, the emergence of powerful new
technologies has accelerated efforts to digitize social management and
bolstered his drive to enforce the party’s primacy in all areas of Chinese
society.
Zhejiang, home to many of China’s leading technology
companies, including Alibaba, is one of the provinces leading the charge. Safe
Zhejiang was designed by a local company, Hangzhou Tianque Technology Co. Ltd.,
which describes its main business as providing “social governance” software to
Chinese authorities. The company’s chief executive, Tang Zhenghong, declined to
comment.
Zhejiang has a strong political connection with Mr. Xi,
who served as its party chief in the 2000s. Zhejiang authorities named their
app after a campaign Mr. Xi launched around 2004 to get local officials to
visit residents more regularly and listen to their problems.
Complaints submitted to the app are visible to all users
registered in that area, and informants are rewarded with points: 20 for
downloading it, 10 for inviting others, five for signing in every day of the
week and two for each problem reported.
The points can be exchanged for “gold coins” that can buy
mobile-phone data, discounts at stores including Whitbread PLC’s Costa Coffee
chain and coupons for brands including the taxi-hailing app Didi Dache and
Tencent Holdings Ltd’s QQ music-streaming service.
Also on offer are internet cameras from Yingshi, a brand
owned by Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology , whose surveillance cameras are
used by Chinese police.
Information sent via the app gets processed in what local
officials call a “social governance integrated command center.” Giant screens
display video-surveillance feeds alongside “mood” charts showing what issues
are trending where, with problem areas flashing red.
Orders are then dispatched not just to local officials
but to grid managers and “volunteers” from social organizations, who can post
notices on the app—again visible to all users in the area—reporting that
problems have been resolved.
Officially, this is voluntary. After Zhejiang authorities
made its use a measure of government performance, some local officials tried to
make it obligatory for officials, grid managers and some regular citizens,
according to official notices and app reviews.
One notice on Zhejiang’s Tongxiang city government
website said users should report on marital and other disputes, and on people
who could “affect social stability,” including members of the banned Falun Gong
spiritual movement, elderly petitioners, drug addicts and the mentally ill.
The public pushback began soon after the app’s launch in
August 2016.
Feedback on app review sites has been overwhelmingly
negative, with many people complaining that kindergartens and schools were
obliging parents to download it, while others said they had been ordered to do
so by local employers.
“Junk software—teachers and students are actually being
forced by the government to download and register!” complained one reviewer on
Sept. 28 last year.
“If you reveal the informant’s personal information, who
will dare to report anything?” wrote another on June 6 this year.
The app has had an average score of 1.8 out of five stars
since its launch, according to App Annie, a California-based company that
provides app market analysis.
Another common complaint is that authorities only allow
users to report minor issues, such as trash being dumped in unauthorized
places, while censoring reports about more serious problems.
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