We spent almost two weeks exploring what life is like in Xinjiang, which China's government has made into a laboratory for its surveillance ambitions. We came back with harrowing stories, and some pretty crazy video: wsj.com/articles/twelv…
In Urumqi, we talked to Parhat Imin, a Uighur fruit vendor whose shop was closed down after ethnic riots in 2009. Now his ID card sets off alarms at checkpoints, making him afraid to leave his neighborhood. "I tell them, 'Just shoot me. I can't live like this."
Facial recognition systems are everywhere: security checkpoints, banks, hotels, even luxury shopping malls. We had to borrow security guards' IDs (and faces) to fill up our rental car with gas.
In Aksu, we interviewed a salesman at a knife shop that had to spend thousands of dollars on a machine that turns a customer's ID card data into a QR code and laser-etches it into every knife they sell. 
Huge thanks to @adrianzenz and @JimMillward, two fantastic scholars who didn't get credit in the final edit of the story but were invaluable in helping us wrap our minds around what's happening in Xinjiang.
If you're not a WSJ subscriber, you can still check out the video, superbly shot and edited by @ClementBurge: wsj.com/video/life-ins…
And if you are a subscriber (bless you), you'll get to see a bunch of great photos by @giuliamarchi
