{"id":3851,"date":"2017-07-25T13:40:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2017\/07\/25\/muslim-android-users-china-face-detention-if-they-dont-install-government-spyware\/"},"modified":"2017-07-25T13:40:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:40:05","slug":"muslim-android-users-china-face-detention-if-they-dont-install-government-spyware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/muslim-android-users-china-face-detention-if-they-dont-install-government-spyware\/","title":{"rendered":"Muslim Android users in China face detention if they don’t install government spyware"},"content":{"rendered":"

TechSpot<\/a><\/p>\n

China\u2019s government has a well-founded reputation for its excessive censorship and surveillance<\/a> of online behavior, but it seems the problem is even worse for some of its minority citizens. In the north-western border region of Xinjiang, home to much of the country\u2019s Muslim population, residents have been told to install an Android spying app or face detention.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Authorities used messaging service WeChat to inform residents of Urumqi, Xinjiang\u2019s capital, that they must install an app called Jingwang. The notice was written in both Mandarin and Uyghur – the language of ethnic group Uighur. It says the app will automatically detect \u201cterrorist and illegal religious videos, images, e-books, and electronic documents.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The message included a QR code for downloading the surveillance app. There\u2019s also a warning that anyone who fails to install the spyware would be detained for ten days.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s reported that Jingwang works by scanning the digital signatures of media files on a device and comparing them to a government database of illegal, \u201cterrorist-related\u201d material. If there\u2019s a match, users will be prompted to delete the offending items.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

According to Jingwang\u2019s website, the app is also designed to \u201cblock pornographic websites, online scams, trojan horses, and phishing sites; to alert users of how much time they spend online; and to enable remote control of one\u2019s home network.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The part about controlling a user\u2019s home network is throwing up a lot of red flags. What\u2019s also worrying is that the app collects information such as Wi-Fi logins, IMEI numbers, and SIM card data. Moreover, it records copies of chat conversations from Weibo and WeChat. Radio Free Asia<\/a>reports that 10 Kazakh women from Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture were arrested over WeChat messages they sent soon after they installed the app.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Authorities in the area say they will be performing random spot checks to make sure Jingwang is installed on users\u2019 devices.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is ostensibly to identify and purge any \u2018terrorist videos,\u2019 but the action violates the privacy rights of Urumqi\u2019s 3 million residents and exposes them to punishment for a host of other possible offenses, including those related to peaceful religious or political expression,\u201d writes US-based human rights group Freedom House.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TechSpot China\u2019s government has a well-founded reputation for its excessive censorship and surveillance of online behavior, but it seems the problem is even worse for some of its minority citizens. In the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3851"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}