(23.10.2018) The idea is simple: By keeping and aggregating records throughout the government’s various ministries and departments, Chinese officials can gain insight into how people behave and develop ways to control them.

The goal writes Rogier Creemers, a postdoctoral scholar specializing in the law and governance of China at Leiden University in The Netherlands, is “cybernetic” behavioral control, allowing individuals to be monitored and immediately confronted with the consequences of their actions. In so doing, authorities can enhance the county’s expanding surveillance apparatus.