Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 22, 2020 / 12:00 pm
China is using advanced technology to monitor both public and private religious gatherings, witnesses told a federal hearing on Wednesday.
"As low-cost processors, sensors, and cameras have proliferated, the extent of religious life that the CCP can surveil has expanded dramatically," said Chris Meserole, deputy director of the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution, on Wednesday at a hearing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
The virtual hearing of USCIRF, a bipartisan federal commission that advises the U.S. government on matters of international religious freedom, focused on "technological surveillance of religion in China."
China currently faces increased international scrutiny for its treatment of its largely-Muslim Uyghur population in the country's far northwest province of Xinjiang.