Urumqi, China, Apr 15, 2019 / 10:08 am
Government-run social media and facial recognition technology are being used to help monitor and detain Muslims in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
This technology has been around China since 2016, but it has been a growing concern in regards to violations of religious freedom and human rights.
Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority that mainly inhabit Xinjiang The advocacy group Uyghur Human Rights Project estimates that approximately ten percent of the Uyghur population, or some 1 million individuals, are being extrajudicially detained in a system of internment camps.
According to Darren Byler writing in Logic magazine, Chinese authorities monitor people through government-run social media platforms, which take the place of blocked websites like Twitter and Facebook. If flagged, the individual will then be a target for artificial intelligence recognition software and possible detainment.