On China's social credit surveillance system and its version here.

I don't go along with the right-wing orientation of this but there is, despite leaving out many elements, a lot of truth in this and the Sky News report.

People worry about the Chinese influence but conveniently forget that we already have blanket surveillance.

New Zealand's CCP-style 

police state

SPECIAL REPORT: Home surveillance the ‘future’ for every Chinese citizen

Chinese activists who breached a government database have revealed a worrying development which provides a glimpse into the country's future – surveillance cameras feeding live footage from the people’s homes directly to the communist party. 

The database exposed by the activists, called the Tongren City Security Facial Recognition System for Building Controls, shows cameras have been installed in residential buildings home to members of the Tujia and Miao tribes in China’s south-west province of Guizhou.

Robert Potter, a former cybersecurity contractor who worked with the activists to release the trove of information, told Sky News there were 110,000 profiles in the system.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Michael Shoebridge said the intrusive home monitoring helps the Chinese government keep tabs on expressions not approved by the Chinese Communist Party, such as religious gatherings, more difficult. 

“This is surveillance that keeps track of people going in and out of buildings, matches the faces to IDs and mobile phone numbers, and identifies anomalies, so if you happen to be having usual visitors to your apartment then the state intelligence services know,” Mr Shoebridge said. 

“It’s the future of what they’ll be doing for every Chinese citizen.” 

There is a lot of attention, quite correctly, on the Chinese surveillance systems but people need to be reminded that the NSA is already able to surveil every inhabitant on the planet and find out everything about them instantly.

This is ALMOST NEVER referred to, but should never been forgotten.

This is from 2014 and Edward Snowden's revelations to the Moment of Truth, organised by Kim Dotcom.

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet….

..."I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email"….

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data