People in China are trying to thwart police surveillance apps
Police are now searching some foreigners’ phones at the border, but there’s an app for that
A recent investigation has unveiled an app being used to check foreigners' phones in Xinjiang. Concerns about such tools being used elsewhere in China have also led to a new tool to undermine these surveillance efforts. So how much do you need to fear for your digital privacy in China?
The investigation uncovered that Chinese border police have been using a forensics app, called Fengcai or BXAQ, to check the phones of foreign travellers. The app reportedly uses a list of more than 73,000 items to scour devices for various documents, videos, photos and audio. The list includes files related to religion, especially Islam, and some pretty bizarre things like music from Japanese metal band Unholy Grave, according to reports.
The news is the first one to confirm that tools like this have been used against foreigners in addition to Chinese citizens, but rumors and reports about similar apps have been swirling around for a while. In fact, some netizens are already fighting back by building their own tools to counter China’s intrusion into people’s digital privacy.
One app said to be similar to Fengcai is called MFSocket, and an anonymous developer has already created an anti-hack tool to try to thwart it.
The developer told us that a person in China discovered MFSocket after being checked by the police in a subway station.