X-China Net cafe surveillance
p2pnet.net News Feature:- With Shanghai’s 1,325 Net bars already under video surveillance, Big Brother is now turning his hard, cold eye to surfer havens throughout the rest of China.
China will install a special video system in all Internet cafes nationwide by the end of 2004, says an official statement from China’s Ministry of Culture (MOC) quoted in Interfax here, going on:
“Once installed, this new surveillance system will require all Internet cafe customers to enter personal information, such as name, age, and their national citizen identification number, before they are allowed to log onto the Internet,” says the report.
“New supervisory centers will also be set up around the country to monitor the online activities of Internet cafe customers. To date, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hubei, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces have already completed installing this new monitoring system in all the Internet cafes within their respective jurisdictions, according to a an MOC statement. All Internet cafes in China will have installed the new system by the end of 2004.”
Interfax says the State Council has called for a “thorough rectification of the Internet bar industry throughout the whole of China from February through August of 2004″ and that cultural, industrial and commercial administration departments at all levels are jointly participating in this action, “for which the main goal is the termination of illegal Internet bars”.
“Under regulations issued by the MOC, all Internet bars illegal operating without a license, including computer schools, computer training institutions, computer labs or electronics reading rooms, will be terminated,” says the report.
“In addition, minors under the age of 18 are forbidden from entering Internet cafes. Moreover, “unhealthy information and websites” will be strictly censored. This new surveillance system will be one the main tools authorities use to carry out these policies.
The MOC justifies its actions by stating that “illegal” Net cafes have been responsible for the dissemination of “unhealthy information and websites,” including pornography, gambling, and violence, “which has in turn had a harmful impact children and caused social instability”.
