China’s Social Credit Score System Now Infecting North America

Chinese surveillance camera
Chinese surveillance camera |

China's citizen surveillance tactics more known as its credit score system has made its way to track Chinese people outside of the country. China's CCP is now covertly conducting surveillance and tracking movement of people even in free nations.

The latest in China's move to keep track of citizens is its installation of over 60 surveillance cameras in the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Back in 2014, the Chinese State Council under the CCP released the "Guidelines of Social Credit System Construction (2014-2020)" which according to The Diplomat outlined the CCP's goal of building a unique basic social credit system by the year 2020. That year has come and gone and China has made good on its promise.

In China, there is a social credit score system in place that limits citizens' rights to travel and gain access to products and services. It is believed that the said system is now 90% complete, except for a few roadblocks that involve the need to "standardize credit information collection processes" and "share information" to centralize data.

That same ideology is being applied through the 60 surveillance cameras overseeing the 30 tables at the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in Vancouver. The footage is then transmitted directly to China, as part of the more than 600 million cameras that the communist regime has installed to keep track of everyone.

"Beijing will, at some point, be able to assign a social credit score to just about everyone on the planet," Gordon G. Chang, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow warned, as per WND. "Yes, it is true that its officials have yet to overcome the obstacles-mainly bureaucratic-in knitting together a China-wide social credit system for individuals, but it is just a matter of time before they succeed."

Ina Mitchell, an investigative journalist and co-writer of the book "The Mosaic Effect" explained that the CCP is looking to expand their reach for "intensive collection of information."

Mitchell believes that the Chinese authorities chose Vancouver because it is a "gateway for the Chinese Communist Party into North America where they engage in pervasive foreign interference activity, mobilizing overseas United Front units to strategically lure political and business leaders using financial inducements and other incentives to promote the Party's agenda."

Furthermore, the Vancouver restaurant is also near a Huawei Technologies facility. It was previously reported that from 2012 to 2017, China had secretly gathered data from computers at the Beijing-sponsored and Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia using Huawei's servers. Huawei's advances in 5G technology has also primed them as a competitive digital technology firm that can support the CCP's information gathering objectives.

According to Politico, Canada-China relations have recently been strained after Canadian authorities arrested senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou back in December 2018 on a U.S. extradition warrant. In retaliation, China arrested two Canadian citizens and charged them with espionage. They are currently waiting for their verdicts and may face lengthy sentences.

This report comes after earlier reports of CCP technology being exported to other nations. These include the surveillance technology it uses to monitor the Christians that it persecutes in other countries.