The 20 most-surveilled cities in the world

Cities in China are under the heaviest CCTV surveillance in the world, according to a new analysis by Comparitech. However, some residents living in cities across the US, UK, UAE, Australia, and India will also find themselves surrounded by a large number of watchful eyes, as our look at the number of public CCTV cameras in 120 cities worldwide found.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras serve many purposes, ranging from crime prevention to traffic monitoring to observing industrial operations in environments not suitable for humans. The digital age has boosted the prevalence of CCTV surveillance. Cameras are getting better and cheaper, while live video streams can be remotely accessed, stored on the internet, and passed around. The adoption of face recognition technology makes it possible for both public and private entities to instantly check the identity of anyone who passes by a CCTV camera.

Based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people, these cities are the top 20 most surveilled in the world:

1. Chongqing, China – 2,579,890 cameras for 15,354,067 people = 168.03 cameras per 1,000 people
2. Shenzhen, China – 1,929,600 cameras for 12,128,721 people = 159.09 cameras per 1,000 people
3. Shanghai, China – 2,985,984 cameras for 26,317,104 people = 113.46 cameras per 1,000 people
4. Tianjin, China – 1,244,160 cameras for 13,396,402 people = 92.87 cameras per 1,000 people
5. Ji’nan, China – 540,463 cameras for 7,321,200 people = 73.82 cameras per 1,000 people
6. London, England (UK) – 627,707 cameras for 9,176,530 people = 68.40 cameras per 1,000 people
7. Wuhan, China – 500,000 cameras for 8,266,273 people = 60.49 cameras per 1,000 people
8. Guangzhou, China – 684,000 cameras for 12,967,862 people = 52.75 cameras per 1,000 people
9. Beijing, China – 800,000 cameras for 20,035,455 people = 39.93 cameras per 1,000 people
10. Atlanta, Georgia (US) – 7,800 cameras for 501,178 people = 15.56 cameras per 1,000 people

www.comparitech.com

China’s EV Market Is Imploding

In China, you can buy a heavily discounted “used” electric car that has never, in fact, been used. Chinese automakers, desperate to meet their sales targets in a bitterly competitive market, sell cars to dealerships, which register them as “sold,” even though no actual customer has bought them. Dealers, stuck with officially sold cars, then offload them as “used,” often at low prices. The practice has become so prevalent that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to stop it. Its main newspaper, The People’s Daily, complained earlier this year that this sales-inflating tactic “disrupts normal market order,” and criticized companies for their “data worship.”

This sign of serious problems in China’s electric-vehicle industry may come as a surprise to many Americans. The Chinese electric car has become a symbol of the country’s seemingly unstoppable rise on the world stage. Many observers point to their growing popularity as evidence that China is winning the race to dominate new technologies. But in China, these electric cars represent something entirely different: the profound threats that Beijing’s meddling in markets poses to both China and the world.

Bloated by excessive investment, distorted by government intervention, and plagued by heavy losses, China’s EV industry appears destined for a crash. EV companies are locked in a cutthroat struggle for survival. Wei Jianjun, the chairman of the Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor, warned in May that China’s car industry could tumble into a financial crisis; it “just hasn’t erupted yet.”

MEANWHILE IN OTHER NEWS: Chinese EVs will destroy jobs unless Government acts, supplier warns. Car parts supplier chief urges European countries to ensure ‘a level playing field’.

www.msn.com

Microsoft Used China-Based Engineers to Support Product Recently Hacked by China

Last month, Microsoft announced that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had exploited vulnerabilities in SharePoint, the company’s widely used collaboration software, to access the computer systems of hundreds of companies and government agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

The company did not include in its announcement, however, that support for SharePoint is handled by a China-based engineering team that has been responsible for maintaining the software for years.

ProPublica viewed screenshots of Microsoft’s internal work-tracking system that showed China-based employees recently fixing bugs for SharePoint “OnPrem,” the version of the software involved in last month’s attacks. The term, short for “on premises,” refers to software installed and run on customers’ own computers and servers.

Microsoft said the China-based team “is supervised by a US-based engineer and subject to all security requirements and manager code review. Work is already underway to shift this work to another location.”

This is yet another example of the West outsourcing to China, only to have them stab us in the back. Honestly what do we expect? Also watch this video: Did China Crash Its Own Rocket to Steal a Secret US Device?

www.propublica.org

The Bible Society. A message from China: thank you!

Since the summer, supporters like you have generously donated more than £100,000 towards Bible work in China, which will be doubled to an amazing £200,000! Thank you so much; your kindness left us humbled and grateful. Most importantly, you are changing people's lives in China...

Kua Wee Seng, who leads our work in China, says, 'You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the number of apples in a seed. Once a seed is planted and becomes an apple tree, you can never tell  how many apples it will produce. It's the same with the word of God. You can never tell what God can do with your gift of the Bible.'

Thank you so much for giving the gift of the Bible in China.

Would you like to find out more and help? Please click here.

www.biblesociety.org.uk

China declares all crypto-currency transactions illegal. Now for the rest or the world!

 

China's central bank has announced that all transactions of crypto-currencies are illegal, effectively banning digital tokens such as Bitcoin.

"Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities," the People's Bank of China said, warning it "seriously endangers the safety of people's assets".

China is one of the world's largest crypto-currency markets. Fluctuations there often impact the global price of crypto-currencies. 

The price of Bitcoin fell by more than $2,000 (£1,460) in the wake of the Chinese announcement.

It is the latest in China's national crackdown on what it sees as a volatile, speculative investment at best - and a way to launder money at worst.

www.bbc.co.uk

Kaspersky, China Telecom, China Mobile named 'threats to US national security'

 

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has labelled Kaspersky, China Mobile, and China Telecom as threats to national security.

The three companies join Huawei, ZTE, Chinese radio-comms vendor Hytera, and Chinese video surveillance systems vendors Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company and Dahua Technology Company.

Kaspersky is the first non-Chinese company to be added to the FCC's list, but the agency did not tie its decision to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The companies were named under the USA's Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 – a law that "prohibits the use of certain federal funds to obtain communications equipment or services from a company that poses a national security risk to US communications networks."

www.theregister.com

Another reason not to do Bitcoin - it is literally costing us the Earth!

The carbon emissions associated with mining bitcoin have accelerated rapidly in China, and they will soon outstrip the total annual emissions of mid-sized European countries.

Analysis by Guan Dabo at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and his colleagues suggests that the total carbon footprint of bitcoin mining in China will peak in 2024, releasing around 130 million metric tonnes of carbon.

This figure exceeds the annual carbon emissions of countries including Italy and the Czech Republic.

By 2024, bitcoin mining in China will require 297 terawatt-hours of energy and account for approximately 5.4 per cent of the carbon emissions from generating electricity in the country.

Mining bitcoin relies on computers racing to solve mathematical puzzles, with miners receiving bitcoin for being the first to process a batch of verified transactions.

In other much Greener news: Great Britain’s electricity system has greenest day ever over Easter 2021.

www.newscientist.com

Chinese hardware spying on users - again

Don't buy an Android phone in China, boffins have warned, as they come crammed with preinstalled apps transmitting privacy-sensitive data to third-party domains without consent or notice.

The research, conducted by Haoyu Liu (University of Edinburgh), Douglas Leith (Trinity College Dublin), and Paul Patras (University of Edinburgh), suggests that private information leakage poses a serious tracking risk to mobile phone customers in China, even when they travel abroad in countries with stronger privacy laws.

In a paper titled "Android OS Privacy Under the Loupe – A Tale from the East," the trio of university boffins analyzed the Android system apps installed on the mobile handsets of three popular smartphone vendors in China: OnePlus, Xiaomi and Oppo Realme.

The researchers looked specifically at the information transmitted by the operating system and system apps, in order to exclude user-installed software. They assume users have opted out of analytics and personalization, do not use any cloud storage or optional third-party services, and have not created an account on any platform run by the developer of the Android distribution. A sensible policy, but it doesn't seem to help much.

The pre-installed set of apps consists of Android AOSP packages, vendor code and third-party software. There are more than 30 third-party packages in each of the Android handsets with Chinese firmware, the paper says.

These include Chinese input apps like Baidu Input, IflyTek Input and Sogou Input on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11. On the OnePlus 9R and Realme Q3 Pro, there's Baidu Map as a foreground navigation app and the AMap package, which runs continuously in the background. And there are also various news, video streaming, and online shopping apps bundled into the Chinese firmware.

Within this limited scope, the researchers found that Android handsets from the three named vendors "send a worrying amount of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) not only to the device vendor but also to service providers like Baidu and to Chinese mobile network operators."

The tested phones did so even when these network operators were not providing service – no SIM card was present or the SIM card was associated with a different network operator.

"The data we observe being transmitted includes persistent device identifiers (IMEI, MAC address, etc.), location identifiers (GPS coordinates, mobile network cell ID, etc.), user profiles (phone number, app usage patterns, app telemetry), and social connections (call/SMS history/time, contact phone numbers, etc.)," the researchers state in their paper.

www.theregister.com

Chinese electric vehicles ‘could be weaponised’ in Britain

Chinese electric vehicles being driven in Britain could be “weaponised” and should be banned from government use, a report has warned.

Modules within Chinese-made electric vehicles - could transmit sensitive data back to the country or even be remotely controlled, the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) warned.

The think tank called for an end to Chinese carmakers being able to win government contracts. Last year it emerged that the Ministry of Defence used electric cars made by Chinese-owned MG.

Whitehall departments are buying up electric cars in an attempt to decarbonise their fleets. The report said the vehicles present a potentially greater security risk than petrol-powered vehicles because they are more likely to be equipped with internet-connected modules capable of collecting data and controlling the car’s functions.

“The UK public remains largely unaware of the dependency, disruption, and data security risks Chinese EVs pose via Chinese manufactured Cellular Internet of Things Modules (CIMs) within them,” it said.

Meanwhile in other news: Lord Mandelson (honorary president of the Great Britain–China Centre) has promised warmer UK relations with China...

www.telegraph.co.uk

Silent night: the agony of global Christianity goes unheard in the West

November brought vast “Free Palestine” marches to the streets of Britain and the world. Those who protested were not put off by unabashed demands for Israel’s elimination or that organisers included Muhammad Kathem Sawalha — whose history as a senior Hamas commander has, interestingly, proved no bar to gaining British citizenship. Neither has weeks of coverage of bombed-out Gazan homes softened the views of Israel’s supporters who see it as a necessary price to demolish the nest of pitiless terrorism.

Such demonstrations show that we have, rightly, not forgotten the Palestinian people — displaced and rendered stateless for decades — nor the plight of Jews worldwide, attacked, abused and threatened, forced to post security guards outside every school and synagogue.

But other conflicts and injustices, as or more terrible, command far less attention. Gaza is sometimes called an “open-air concentration camp”. Whatever we think of that, there are more than a million Muslims detained in literal concentration camps in Xinjiang, subjected to forced labour, re-education, the removal of their children, and mandatory sterilisation. In the most systematic act of ethnic cleansing in recent history, the birth rate in Uyghur- majority regions collapsed by more than 60 per cent in only three years.

But there is no BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement targeting China. Chinese students are not asked to defend their government’s conduct. Muslims do not march for their Chinese brethren, Labour councillors do not resign over Britain’s China policy and the new Foreign Secretary’s history of opening doors for Beijing suggests his conscience is unstirred. You can add to this list of the butchered, displaced and discriminated- against Kurds, Syrians, Yemenis, Sahrawis, Indians and Rohingya.

But one religious minority subjected to some of the worst treatment, with 360 million facing persecution, receives even less attention in the West. With one in seven of its adherents endangered, Christianity is one of the most oppressed religions in the world.

While Middle Eastern Jews have a homeland to flee to, carved out from the former Ottoman Empire, the place intended to be the Christian Arab homeland, the Republic of Lebanon, is now a failed state, dominated by Islamist groups such as Hezbollah. Since 2012, Christians have shrunk from 40 per cent to 32 per cent of Lebanon’s population, with many fleeing for the West.

The other enclave of Christians in the Middle East, Armenia, faces continual hostility from its more powerful neighbour Azerbaijan, which recently struck a devastating blow in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabkh, displacing thousands of Armenian Christians.

Christians have been forced to flee historic homelands in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Holy Land itself. From making up 13 per cent of the region’s population in the early twentieth century, they now comprise only 5 per cent.

The world is poorer for the displacement from their homelands of those with Syriac, Coptic and Chaldean cultures —indigenous peoples whose presence long preceded Arab conquest of their lands — to an uncertain life seeking refuge in the secular West. This is a civilizational loss.

Yet in the face of this global agony, the West this Christmas stands silent. Where are the sanctions, weapons and cultural solidarity for the millions of Christians facing existential threat? The war against Christianity is furiously waged by Marxist atheists in China, by Hindu nationalists in India, and even, piquantly, by Jewish bigots in Israel. READ MORE...

www.thecritic.co.uk

MI5 head warns of 'epic scale' of Chinese espionage

More than 20,000 people in the UK have now been approached covertly online by Chinese spies, the head of MI5 said. It comes amid a new warning to tens of thousands of British businesses of the risk of having their innovation stolen.

Ken McCallum was speaking to the BBC at an unprecedented public appearance of the security chiefs of the Five Eyes alliance in California.

The heads of US, UK, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand security agencies appeared together. They did so for the first time to warn of commercial secrets being obtained by China.

Stanford University in California was chosen as the venue for the first public meeting because it lies in the heart of Silicon Valley. In both public statements and a closed session with entrepreneurs and investors, security chiefs warned that cutting-edge research is being stolen.

"We have seen a sustained campaign on a pretty epic scale," Mr McCallum told the BBC in an interview during the event.

We all know that China is spying on us & we need to be careful. However people still buy smart speakers, mobile phones, computers, connected cars & motorbikes (etc) designed & manufactured in China! Decades ago, we were concerned about "reds under the bed". Nowadays (unbelievably) we actually pay for the spying devices & place them ourselves in our homes & businesses!

www.bbc.co.uk

Buyers ask Lenovo for Servers that aren't built in China...

Some server-buyers are asking Lenovo to provide product made in Mexico, rather than made in China.

So says Nutanix senior veep and head of Asia Pacific and Japan Matt Young, who in conversation with The Register today said he’s aware of buyers in India who’ve made the request.

Security suspicions are one reason some buyers prefer Mexican kit. Another is that some imports from China have languished on Indian docks for rather longer than imports from other nations.

www.theregister.com

Honda CEO says 'we have no chance' against Chinese automakers

Competing with Chinese-made EVs has been the goal — and demise — of many an automaker from Europe to America and Japan. This includes Honda, which announced $15.8 billion in losses as a result of trying to keep up with China's cheap EVs. These losses were the result of a dramatic pivot in its EV strategy, which saw the automaker canceling its electric 0 Series vehicles and the EV it was developing with Sony. 

With China's automakers releasing cheap EVs that boast looks, interiors, tech, and features to rival those from outside brands, automakers like Honda have started to struggle with sales in the country. Honda's sales in China dropped from 1.62 million units in 2020 to just 640,000 units in 2025, and annual production volume in the country may fall below 600,000 by the end of 2026. 

Even the auto giant Honda can't compete against the Chinese competition. So - what are we all going to do? Save a few quid & destroy what is left of our car industry? Not Kim & me. BUY BRITISH - before it's too late!

www.slashgear.com

KTM takes drastic measures to cut losses - as financial woes worsen

It was just a couple of years ago that Pierer Mobility - owned KTM celebrated 12 straight years of record growth. Now, the company is in a dire crisis that requires a halt in production and the sacking of more than 300 employees. How did it get here?

Overproduction and quality issues are two of the main reasons for KTM’s state of affairs. In an emergency announcement released this past week, Pierer Mobility AG disclosed that KTM AG's liquidity strategy for the 2025 fiscal year will require additional funding to the tune of a "nine-figure sum in dollars." That's in the hundreds of millions for those not wanting to count zeroes.

To cut inventory, a production halt is planned in Mattighofen in Austria. This will result in around 300 layoffs. KTM states that investor talks are in progress and that it remains to be seen if these "measures are sufficient." The KTM AG group accounts for more than 95% of Pierer Mobility AG’s revenue.

For a while now KTM has been announcing layoffs and job relocations to China. The managers at Mattighofen have previously downplayed the situation, claiming that Europe's biggest motorcycle manufacturer could handle its current financial crisis on its own. However, that crisis has worsened.

It all started towards the end of last year when KTM AG decided to shift production of its “mid-range models” and certain R&D from Austria to China (CF Moto) and India (Bajaj Auto) – all of which resulted in job losses for some 300 employees in Austria. At that point, the board of directors cited discouraging economic conditions in Europe, slowing economic growth, increasing inflation, and higher interest rates as the reasons behind the moves.

Wanna know what the real problem is here? We all like new shiny things, but I've been horrified by all the unnecessary tech and huge price tags attached to bikes these days. We need a dose of realism in motorcycling! If several of the big manufacturers (HD, BMW, Ducati - I'm looking at you) don't get that message & soon - some folks will get tempted to go to the dark side & buy into those dreadful Chinese bikes. As it is, in the UK, we've seen several major motorcycle dealerships go bust - in just the last few months. We need to encourage youngsters in - not just pander to older geezers with lots of available dosh! Have a look at this excellent video "The Affordability Crisis in Motorcycling" by Yammie Noob - it says it all...

www.newatlas.com

China crisis is a TikToking time bomb

 

As country after country bans TikTok from official systems, it’s fair to ask what’s so dodgy about a social network filled with dance crazes, makeup advice and cats.

You can understand why selling the Middle Kingdom state-of-the-art EUV lithography gear might be a bad idea, but this? Is it the xenophobia China often blames for Western reticence? Plain old trade barriers? Cold war cultural imperialism? No, it really is a security matter, and one that’s far more serious than it looks.

State security and national intelligence can look like, and often is, a proxy for political machinations. This is not that. It’s not a matter of morality or the ethical superiority of democracy. The West can bug, spy, infiltrate and deceive with the best of them. The CIA secretly owned Crypto AG, a Swiss cryptography company, and most certainly snaffled a ton of data from unsuspecting organisations as a result.

There’s no equivalence here between the East and West, no two sides of the same coin. The difference is the extensive legal framework protecting Western citizens and companies from state security overreach. Imperfect and constantly stretched as it is, the law is on our side. The NSA or GCHQ cannot compel cooperation - they can ask, but even so within limits. Apple and Google can and do tell the FBI to get a warrant or go swivel. Xiaomi and Vivo don't have that option.

Chinese law, specifically Article 7 of the National Intelligence Law compels all citizens and organisations to act as covert arms of state security on demand, even if overseas. There is no saying no. There is no even admitting it’s happened. Chinese owned technology companies can deny this as much as they like, in fact they have to, but the law is clear. The TikTok CEO can offer all the safeguards, promises and firewalls he likes; he is required by law to secretly bypass all those on command.

This is before the obscure and impenetrable intermingling of state, military and private funding and governance for Chinese companies. The People’s Liberation Army is a major source of funding for enterprise: if you think private equity funding comes with strings in the West, wait until it comes with nuclear missiles and aircraft carriers. Then there’s the disconcerting disappearances of top executives who displease Beijing. All Chinese technology is under the direct control of Chinese state security, and all Chinese technology companies are kept in line by whatever means necessary. Read more...

www.theregister.com

Make it cheap enough - some people would buy anything: Huawei outsells Apple in 2019, becomes No. 2 global smartphone vendor!

Market research firms Canalys and Counterpoint Research have posted their 2019 global smartphone market share reports. Both reports say the biggest mover is Huawei, which, thanks to a whopping 16-17 percent annual growth, claimed the No. 2 smartphone vendor spot in 2019, behind Samsung and ahead of Apple. Both firms have similar global market share numbers for 2019, with Samsung at around 20 percent, Huawei at 16 percent, Apple at 13 percent, and Xiaomi and Oppo at around eight percent each.

Counterpoint credits Huawei's success in its home country of China for its success, saying, "This was the result of an aggressive push from Huawei in the Chinese market, where it achieved almost 40 percent market share." According to the firm, China makes up 60 percent of Huawei's shipments.

www.arstechnica.com

Apple bug crashed iPhones when you wrote 'Taiwan'

Many tech companies have to write code to adapt to China's strict rules, including its denial of Taiwan's independent status. However, Apple's approach to it may have been... slightly buggy. Security researcher Patrick Wardle has reported that iOS 11.3 and earlier included a bug that would crash some users' devices whenever they wrote "Taiwan" or used the Taiwanese flag emoji, regardless of the app. While some aspects of the flaw remained mysterious to Wardle, he determined that certain language/region settings would return a "null" code, prompting the crash when referencing the island.

You may have noticed that we're referring to the bug in the past tense -- that's because it's thankfully been fixed as of iOS 11.4.1. And unlike some of Apple's past text-related bugs, it wasn't guaranteed to happen. You could even fix it yourself in an interim fashion by switching back and forth between China and another region. Still, it's not exactly the kind of bug you want to have -- especially not for people who have good reason to talk about Taiwan in regular conversation.

www.engadget.com

Robotaxi Outage in China Leaves Passengers Stranded on Highways

An unknown technical problem caused a number of robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech giant Baidu to freeze on Tuesday in the middle of traffic, trapping some passengers in the vehicles for more than an hour.

In Wuhan, a city in central China where Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, people on Chinese social media reported witnessing the cars suddenly malfunction and stop operating. Photos and videos shared online show the Baidu cars halted on busy highways, often in the fast lane.

And yet we are told that self driving cars are the future. Not my future - ever!

www.wired.com

Canada orders China's Hikvision to close Canadian operations

OTTAWA, June 28 (Reuters) - The Canadian government has ordered Chinese surveillance camera manufacturer Hikvision, to cease operations in Canada over national security concerns, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said late on Friday.

Hikvision, also known as Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co, has faced numerous sanctions and restrictions by Canada's neighbor, the United States, over the past five and a half years for the firm's dealings and the use of its equipment in China's Xinjiang region, where rights groups have documented abuses against the Uyghur population and other Muslim communities.

"The government has determined that Hikvision Canada Inc's continued operations in Canada would be injurious to Canada's national security," Joly said on X, adding that the decision was taken after a multi-step review of information provided by Canada's security and intelligence community.

www.reuters.com

Is Lenovo a blind spot in US anti-China security measures?

Lenovo's participation in a cybersecurity initiative has reopened old questions over the company's China origins, especially in light of the growing mistrust between Washington and Beijing over technology.

Last week, Lenovo announced to the world that it is now involved in the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) initiative, which was established by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to enlist private sector help in addressing threats to US critical infrastructure.

On the face of it, there is nothing unusual in that. Lenovo is the biggest PC supplier in the world, with figures from market researchers putting its market share at almost a quarter of global sales.

Yet Lenovo is also a Chinese company, founded in Beijing 40 years ago as Legend and now registered in Hong Kong. It gained greater market access partly thanks to its acquisition of IBM's PC division with its iconic Thinkpad laptops in 2005, then picked up Big Blue's x86 server business nearly a decade later in 2014.

www.theregister.com