p2pnet.net News:- By the end of June, more than 110,000 computers in Shanghai’s 1,325 Net bars will be under video surveillance, "to ensure they don’t serve minors or allow customers to surf banned Websites".

The statement comes from the Shanghai Daily here, reporting on a Shanghai Culture, Radio, Film and TV Administration decision.

Nor is that all.

Six hundred ‘volunteers’ will also "inspect Net bars from time to time and report back to the administration," says the story.

Special software "forces users to input their identification card numbers before they can log on, to ensure no one under the age of 16 uses the computers," says the state newspaper. "Foreigners will have to input their passport number."

The technology, which cost US$843,373 to develop, "can help supervise more and spot illegal activities immediately," Yu Wenchang, who’s in charge of the project, is quoted as saying.

"Once the software is installed, it will send a message to a remote supervisory center any time a Net bar computer is used to view pornography or ’superstitious’ Websites, such as those containing information about the banned Falun Gong cult," says the report, going on:

"The software will also inform authorities if Net cafes are operating overnight, which is banned."

Bar owners will have to keep copies of the video for 30 days.

The city has already installed video cameras in every Internet cafe so officials can keep track of youngsters entering or leaving them.

The 600 ‘volunteers’ comprise teachers, youth affair workers and members of the People’s Congress, Yu said.

Fifty-seven Net bars have so far been "punished or shut down" and a list of the violators is on a government website here.

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