Social stability is a key concern of China’s authoritarian state and mass surveillance of the Chinese citizens a key tool to achieve it. This surveillance relies on manpower : a pervasive network of paramilitary forces, the police, local officials, neighborhood committees, informal community spies, internet police and censors, secret service agents and watchdogs, as well as everyday bureaucrat-monitors. Technology applied to surveillance now provides them with a level of efficiency never seen before. From the millions of CCTV cameras set-up at every street corners and coupled with facial recognition systems to the monitoring of smartphones communications, little can escape the eyes and ears of the state. Or so it seems. The planned nationwide implementation of a social credit system combining the analysis of individual social behaviours with government data has raised the stakes. Fears of the advent of an Orwellian dystopian society have been voiced. For now, the social credit system in its infancy, is proving difficult to implement while technology (i.e. facial recognition) has also got its shortcomings. Orwell will have to wait. For how long?

What follows is both a document about now, and where we are heading to.