“Police across China are buying software and equipment to tap mobile phones as President Xi Jinping tightens control of public opinion and the spread of information,” Lulu Yilun Chen reports for Bloomberg. “The police department of the Wenzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone said it spent 149,000 yuan ($24,000) to buy equipment, including what it called Trojan Horse software, from a state-owned technology company, according to a post on its website today. The software is used to monitor calls, texts and photos on smartphones, it said in the post, which was removed after gaining attention on Chinese social media.”
“The purchases shed light on the extent to which China monitors its citizens’ personal information amid a broader government clampdown on Internet freedom,” Chen reports. “Provincial governments and police departments in Jiangsu and Inner Mongolia are seeking to buy similar software to gather information from mobile devices, according to procurement lists on their websites.”
“In a procurement list for information-gathering devices, police in Shandong province sought equipment to gather mobile information on phone contact lists, call records, texts, calendars and social media records, including those for Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Both services are blocked in China,” Chen reports. “The department also sought to collect information deleted from mobile phones.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shocker.
Sound, ethical governments do not need to control public opinion.
No wonder they promote the hell out of Android phones in China. Smart Chinese citizens use iPhones and iPads.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
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