China’s Surveillance State Is Selling Citizen Data as a Side Hustle

November 21, 2024

Surveillance cameras

(Wired) – Chinese black market operators are openly recruiting government agency insiders, paying them for access to surveillance data and then reselling it online—no questions asked.

China has long been a billion-plus-person experiment in total state surveillance, with virtually no legal checks on the government’s ability to physically and digitally monitor its citizens. When so much control of citizens’ private data amasses within a few government agencies, however, it doesn’t stay there. Instead, that bounty of private info has also leaked onto a lively black market—one where insiders sell off their own access to any scammer or stalker willing to pay. (Read More)