An extensive investigation published by The New York Times on Tuesday has revealed that Chinese authorities are building DNA databases on men in 25 of the mainland’s 31 provinces. Iris scans and voice prints are also reportedly being used to build profiles on citizens. The revelations were discovered in government bidding documents analyzed by the Times, which show the goals behind the bids for surveillance technology. In Zhongshan, authorities reportedly wrote of plans to obtain devices that would allow them to record audio of people within a 300-foot radius around public cameras. In another case, authorities in Guangdong purchased phone trackers with the aim of weeding out anyone with a Uyghur-to-Chinese dictionary app on their phone, the report says. In bids for facial-recognition cameras, police reportedly wrote of plans to place the cameras in places where they’d get as many people as possible, including hotels, residential buildings, and even karaoke lounges.
