Mass Surveillance Society Without Limits – China to Monitor Students With Smart Pens Now.
CCP wants to control and master everything.
The mass surveillance society built by the CCP in China over the past several decades is frightening for us in the West. This fear of China by the rest of the world is something that limits China's rise as the world's leading superpower in the future. To achieve Xi Jinping's goals for China in the future more quickly, the CCP should instead seek to inspire in my opinion.
But that is another question.
For the time being, what interests us is to learn that China has decided to add a new string to its arsenal of controlling Chinese society. From this new school year in China, the teachers will receive live notes of the students in class.
The innocent drawings of children on a corner of the notebook, it is finished! CCP doesn't want them anymore.
Primary and secondary schools in China are distributing smart pens to their students. With the help of a mini-camera, they can film the children's note-taking and send it in real time to the teachers. Their distribution will be free and generalized for this school year.
With this, teachers can make sure that their students are paying attention in class, working, and not letting themselves go to scribbles or other daydreams. Outside the classroom, it's also a way to download homework for correction. They are stored in a cloud, allowing the CCP to keep track of the writings.
The CCP wants to control everything and give the population no respite
According to the Sichuan (southwestern) newspaper Chengdu Shangabo, from the end of July 2022, a teacher on the island of Hainan in southern China would have distributed connected pens to students to complete their summer homework.
When a child writes, a notification is sent to the teacher to inform him that he is working. This should allow knowing the time of work and the time taken to answer a question. Teachers will be able to keep statistics to know where they should focus their explanations.
According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, this device helps “strengthen the management of homework in schools. Teachers should fully correct all homework and encourage the scientific use of computer tools for homework analysis and diagnosis.”
However, the newspaper said the practice was already widespread in some areas of Shanghai and Yunnan provinces. On the Internet, one student confided in a post her concern:
“I am being watched. I have lost the joy of summer vacation.”
Widely relayed, this post provoked many reactions. Some Chinese want to buy these pens for their little brother or sister, others believe that the school is creating a barrier to the freedom of students. To the little freedom that Chinese students have.
The Chinese media are concerned first of all about the workload of the teachers, who should correct all the homework during the vacations. This sharpens an already thin line in the country between work and rest. Between time spent working in the classroom and at home, during and outside of school hours.
But the biggest concern is of course the use of these smart objects as a mass surveillance tool by the CCP. As is often the case, it all starts with a harmless initiative that is in line with technological progress. Then, it always gets complicated with the CCP hiding its real intentions.
The most worrying thing for us Westerners is to imagine that this type of initiative is likely to reassure our political leaders, who never hesitate to criticize China for its lack of respect for individual liberties, but who frequently seem to try to follow the path traced by the CCP of the mass surveillance society.
Distrust and resistance remain the best weapons to avoid our Western societies falling into this Chinese model.