Talk about Big Brother! Every Beijing mobile phone user will be tracked through the use of the latest global positioning technology, the municipal government announced on Tuesday.
The project, called the Information Platform of Real-time Citizen Movement, aims to watch over more than 20 million people in Beijing 24 hours a day, local media said yesterday. Wherever you are - whether in the bathroom, on the subway or in Tiananmen Square - the government will know.
Wireless communication experts said the system would be particularly useful not only for following the whereabouts of individuals but also in detecting any unusual gathering of a large number of people.
It is unknown whether the government launched the project to prevent a 'jasmine revolution' or other social unrest, but with the help of supercomputers, officials will know where the next gathering spot is before protesters get there.
Li Guoguang - deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, which worked on the project with China Mobile and, presumably, the two other state-owned mobile service providers, China Unicom and China Telecom - told the Beijing Daily that the project would be used only to ease traffic jams.
Using data provided by mobile service providers, the government would know the population distribution and movement of the city with unprecedented accuracy, Li said.
'To some degree, [the project] can effectively increase citizens' travelling efficiency and ease traffic jams' by giving officials information such as which subway line was crowded, which bus line was filled and which road was congested, Li was quoted by the newspaper as saying.