China has been secretly installing a surveillance app on tourists’ phones as they enter the northwestern Xinjiang region, according to a new exclusive investigation by the New York Times and other outlets.
It scans for Quran passages, Dalai Lama photos, and other things the authorities don’t want you to bring into Xinjiang.
This is the same region where the government has detained an estimated 1 million Uighur Muslims in internment camps.
When you try to cross over by land from central Asia into Xinjiang, Chinese border agents stop you at the port of entry. They insist you hand over your phone, which they take into a separate room while you wait for an hour or more. They install an app called Fengcai, which downloads your phone’s data — all your text messages, contacts, call log history, calendar entries, and installed apps. All this sensitive data is then sent, unencrypted, to a local server.
more at vox.com
