Equipment and technology from telecommunications firm Nortel is being used by the Chinese Government to monitor its citizens, according to report by a Canadian human rights group.
The report - China's Golden Shield , published by Montreal-based Rights & Democracy - acknowledged that most of the world's largest technology companies actively market their wares to the central government and its public security bureaus.
However, the report details Nortel's co-operation with China on developing voice recognition software, which the authors said was aimed at monitoring telephone conversations and providing equipment to monitor and control access to the Internet and software for transmitting images from closed-circuit cameras.
Rights & Democracy said such technologies interfered with citizens' rights of free association and free speech.
The report's release was timed to coincide with the gathering of government heads and industry leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum in Shanghai this week.
A US$10 million network built in Shanghai in time for the Apec summit includes Nortel's Shasta 5000 firewall, which allows authorities to monitor traffic passing to and from specific computers 'in direct conflict with the right to privacy', the report said.
'This technology will also make it more difficult for dissidents to have clandestine communications and facilitate police monitoring of Internet users attempting to access URLs not judged appropriate by the Chinese Government.'