Accidentally Published Website Reveals China Tracks Foreign Citizens

A cybersecurity researcher discovered an open Chinese government website that exposed surveillance of about 12,000 foreign residents, including from Israel. The system included data from cameras, medical records, and facial recognition, and flagged journalists and key countries. The data went offline in May.

Cybersecurity researcher and journalist Marc Hopper, based in Amsterdam, accidentally discovered an open Chinese government website that revealed a widespread surveillance system targeting foreign residents in China. The site, designed for the Public Security Bureau of Zhangjiakou, contained information on about 12,000 individuals, including more than 700 foreign residents in the city and over 300 foreign journalists. The system collected data from surveillance cameras, medical records, accounts, facial recognition tools, and other sources, and included fields on places visited, hospital visits, fuel payments, flights, and trains, as well as classification by nationality, gender, marital status, and profession. The platform flagged residents or tourists from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US, as well as from countries designated as "key countries," including Israel, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, and Sudan. Hopper was astonished to find that the database contained personal information about himself, likely due to his previous work in China. He downloaded as much data as possible over several months, and the site went offline in May. The article was published in the New York Times.