Thread by @JoshJPhilipp

Thread:

Australia is adopting China's programs for high-tech totalitarianism, starting with monitoring what people do on their cell phones, and making "virtual fences."

Column here: theepochtimes.com/chinas-big-bro…

Australia is preparing to launch its own version of the Chinese regime’s high-tech system for monitoring and controlling its citizens. The launch will be in Darwin, and will include systems to monitor people and their activity on their cell phones. (1)

The new system is based on monitoring programs in Shenzhen, China, where the CCP is testing its Social Credit System. (2)

Officials on the Darwin council traveled to Shenzhen, according to NT News to “have a chance to see exactly how their Smart Technology works prior to being fully rolled out.” (3) ntnews.com.au/news/council-t…

In Darwin, they’ve already constructed “poles, fitted with speakers, cameras and Wi-Fi,” according to NT News, which will monitor people, their movements around the city, the websites they visit, and what apps they use. (4)

The monitoring will be done mainly by artificial intelligence, but will alert authorities on set triggers. (5)

Just like in China, the surveillance system is being branded as a “smart city” program, and while Australian officials claim it’s operations are benign, it functions to monitor cell phone activity and has “virtual fences” that will trigger alerts if people cross them. (6)

“We’ll be getting sent an alarm saying ‘there’s a person in this area that you’ve put a virtual fence around’ … boom an alert goes out to whatever authority, whether it’s us or police to say ‘look at camera five’.” (7)

The above is a quote from Josh Sattler—the Darwin council’s general manager for innovation, growth, and development services. The nature of the “virtual fences” and what type of activity will sound an alarm is still not being made clear. (8)

Sattler said it will tell the government “where people are using Wi-Fi, what they’re using Wi-Fi for, are they watching YouTube etc, all these bits of information we can share with businesses …" (9)

The CCP’s smart city Social Credit System is able to monitor each person in the society, and tracks every element of their lives and assigns each person a citizen score that determines their level of freedom in society. (10) theepochtimes.com/chinas-orwelli…

The tool is a core piece of the CCP’s programs to monitor and persecute dissidents, including religious believers and people who oppose the ruling communist system. (11)

Chinese human rights lawyer and visiting scholar at New York University Teng Biao described the Social Credit system as a new form of tyranny, meant to reactivate the CCP’s totalitarian hold on society. (12)

“In the past, there was the Nazi totalitarianism and Mao Zedong’s totalitarian system, but a totalitarian system powered by the internet and contemporary technology has not existed before,” Teng said, in a recent interview with The Epoch Times. (13) theepochtimes.com/chinas-social-…

“The CCP is now taking the first step to build such a high-tech totalitarian system, by using credit ratings and monitoring and recording every detail in people’s daily life, which is very frightening,” he said. (14)