How Much Surveillance is Enough?

In the Wall Street Journal today there is an interesting article about how much surveillance is enough to deter and prevent terrorism in China.  According to this article there is never enough.  But, one thing I did find interesting was the mention of voice recognition technology, not something I had seen  associated with Chinese surveillance.  Facial recognition is used a lot more than in other parts of the world.  Retinal scanning is more common and seemingly accepted by the most affluent members of the population.  What choice do they have?

The cars of journalists were watched with license plate scanners, the cars stopped and searched just because it was possible to easily identify them.  This is just harassment, though it was easy to tell that it wasn’t just journalists that came in for this kind of treatment.

The “social credit” system shows up here too when a man is blacklisted and everywhere he goes there is an X by his name when he checks in.  He claims to not know why, but says “I can’t go anywhere.” Imagine doing a facial scan at a gas station and then wondering if the police will show up to ask you why you need more gas today.  All this in the name of “harmony”.  You can never have enough harmony.