When you think of the phrase “top 10 ways,” you probably picture a light‑hearted list of travel hacks or cooking tricks. In this case, however, the list reads more like a script for a dystopian TV show. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been steadily tightening its grip on everyday life, turning ordinary activities into high‑tech, high‑surveillance experiences that would make even the creators of Black Mirror raise an eyebrow.
10 Facial Recognition for Toilet Paper
China is currently undergoing a “Toilet Revolution,” a campaign launched by President Xi Jinping in 2015 to upgrade restroom facilities across the nation’s most visited tourist spots. The push came after countless complaints about grimy pit toilets and sub‑standard amenities. Billions of yuan have since been funneled into building luxurious public bathrooms equipped with Wi‑Fi, vending machines, televisions, and even charging stations for electric scooters and cars.
But some local authorities have taken the upgrade a step further. In many of these high‑tech lavatories, users must stand on a marked spot while a facial‑recognition scanner snaps a picture of their face and then dispenses a 28‑inch strip of toilet paper (roughly six to seven sheets). If you need more, you’re forced to wait nine minutes for the next batch. Certain “smart” stalls even feature alarms that alert restroom staff when a patron has lingered too long – the alarm sounds after fifteen minutes, prompting a supervisor to check on the situation.
9 Public Humiliation for Jay Walking
Road traffic accidents claim around 260,000 lives each year on mainland China’s highways, with pedestrians and cyclists accounting for a staggering 60 % of the fatalities. Disturbingly, evidence suggests some drivers deliberately run down pedestrians to dodge the hefty medical bills that would follow a collision – a practice locally dubbed the “hit‑to‑kill” rule. The expense of ongoing treatment often outweighs a one‑time compensation payout, incentivising this grim calculus.
To curb jaywalking and the resulting tragedies, the government has deployed a suite of facial‑recognition tools that capture the faces of offenders and plaster them on electronic billboards and online portals. The intention is clear: shame citizens into compliance. Once identified, the offender receives a modest fine that is automatically deducted from their Weibo or WeChat accounts. Repeat violators are blacklisted on the social‑credit system, stripping them of access to various public services.
In 2018, Ningbo officials inadvertently embarrassed a prominent businesswoman after their system misidentified an advertisement on a moving bus as a jaywalker. The face captured belonged to Dong Mingzhu, a respected executive whose image was being used in an air‑conditioning commercial, not a pedestrian breaking the law.
8 Fitting Workforces with Brain‑Reading Headsets
Back in 2018, a wave of revelations exposed a growing trend among Chinese corporations: the use of sophisticated head‑gear to monitor workers’ brainwave activity. From power plants in Hangzhou to state‑run hospitals, these devices are touted as tools for boosting efficiency and safety. Hangzhou’s state‑owned power company claims the technology has sharpened workflow and profit margins, while Changhai Hospital employs the headbands, paired with pressure sensors and cameras, to anticipate violent outbursts among patients. Even state schools are experimenting with the gear to gauge student concentration levels.
The headsets work by detecting a range of brainwave signals, flagging overly emotional or anxious states that are deemed detrimental to productivity. When a warning is issued, managers may grant a day off or reassign the employee to a less demanding role. As neuroscience professor Jin Jia explains, “Some jobs demand unwavering focus; there’s no room for error.”
7 Robo‑Dove Spy Drones
Dozens of Chinese agencies have deployed robotic birds—dubbed “Robo‑Dove”—to eavesdrop on unsuspecting citizens. These tiny surveillance drones, weighing just 200 grams, feature a suite of GPS antennas, sensors, and cameras. Their semi‑deformable wings generate both lift and thrust, allowing them to mimic the flight patterns of real birds so convincingly that flocks often follow them, helping the drones blend seamlessly into the sky.
The government touts these near‑silent machines as perfect for covert monitoring. They have already seen action in five provinces, including the Muslim‑majority region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is keen to suppress Turkic separatist sentiment through pervasive surveillance, DNA tracking, and “re‑education” camps. Clocking speeds of 25 mph, the drones remain invisible to all but the most sensitive radar. The military is also evaluating them for border patrol, environmental protection, and land‑planning missions.
6 Artificial News Anchors
At the 2018 World Internet Conference, Xinhua News Agency unveiled what it called the world’s first artificial news presenters. Developed by search‑engine giant Sogou, these virtual anchors boast lifelike hand gestures and facial expressions. The English‑speaking anchor, modeled after Xinhua’s own Zhang Zhao, delivered a segment on Panama’s strategic importance to China’s Latin American outreach, concluding with the line, “That’s all for today’s English news program. As an AI news anchor under development, I know there is a lot to improve.”
Since that debut, the AI news team has expanded to include a digital female presenter, and continuous machine‑learning upgrades have refined their mannerisms, facial animations, and speech patterns. These tireless virtual journalists now deliver thousands of reports across Xinhua’s platforms. While Xinhua serves as the CCP’s official mouthpiece, its internal media—unavailable to the public—feeds party officials with uncensored updates. Meanwhile, Sogou’s parent company Tencent continues to underpin the regime’s vast surveillance architecture.
5 Faking Exercise to Avoid Salary Deductions
With fitness‑tracking apps now woven into daily life, Chinese employers have begun exploiting step counts to enforce productivity. In 2015, Tencent integrated a step‑tracker into its ubiquitous WeChat app, allowing users to monitor their daily walks and “like” friends’ step totals. By 2018, a real‑estate firm in southeast China started using this feature to police its staff, imposing a penalty of one yuan (about 14 cents) for every 100 steps missed below a 180,000‑step monthly target. A human‑resources employee once lost roughly $14 for falling short by 10,000 steps.
Insurance companies have also jumped on the trend, offering discounts to customers who meet step goals. In response, many Chinese have begun cheating the system. Since WeChat’s tracker relies on a phone’s internal accelerometer, users can swing their device in a cradle or attach it to a rotating platform, tricking the sensor into logging steps that never occurred. Some restaurants have even installed these contraptions to keep patrons drinking and dining longer.
4 Study the Great Nation App
China’s Publicity Department has rolled out an app called “Study the Great Nation,” a glossy digital textbook that extols President Xi Jinping’s achievements and the Party’s ideological triumphs. While it masquerades as an educational tool, the app also grants the CCP “super‑user” privileges, effectively allowing the party to monitor a user’s daily activities.
The platform pushes a steady stream of Xi‑centric news, even promoting a television series titled “Xi Time.” Users embark on a curated tour of China’s history, culture, and socialist principles, then must complete a series of quizzes to prove they’ve absorbed the Party’s doctrine. Test results are displayed on leaderboards, sparking competition among citizens. Schools shame students with low scores, employers demand proof of performance, and journalists must complete the course to obtain press cards.
Over 100 million people have downloaded the app, a figure bolstered largely by government coercion. Early reviews were dismal—averaging a mere 2.7 stars on the Apple Store—yet many were quickly deleted, leaving the app’s reputation shrouded in official propaganda.
3 Catching Wanted Criminals with Smart Glasses
Chinese police forces have embraced cutting‑edge tech to track down fugitives, employing smart glasses that integrate facial‑recognition software. In 2015, tech firm LLVision released a Chinese version of Google Glass called GLXSS. The devices have proven effective on bustling railway platforms in Zhengzhou, where during the 2018 Lunar New Year, officers used them to detain human traffickers, hit‑and‑run suspects, and individuals traveling with forged IDs.
In Sichuan, law‑enforcement personnel wear the glasses at highway checkpoints, capturing vehicle license plates and cross‑referencing them against a database of wanted individuals. An 8‑megapixel camera streams HD footage to a tablet, which instantly matches faces to the national criminal registry. LLVision’s CEO Wu Fei defends the technology, insisting it serves “noble” purposes and that “we trust the government.”
2 Taser‑Wielding Police Robots
China has positioned itself as a world leader in both military and civilian robotics, exporting its innovations to emerging markets across the Middle East and Africa. The nation’s tech‑driven arsenal includes attack helicopters, stealth jets, mini‑submarines, and tank destroyers, alongside a suite of police robots that patrol city centers, hospitals, airports, and construction sites.
In 2016, the National Defense University unveiled AnBot, a 78‑kg autonomous security robot reminiscent of Doctor Who’s Daleks. Equipped with surveillance cameras and an extendable electro‑shock arm, AnBot can sprint at 11 mph toward cries for help, offering rapid response to violence or unrest. Today, it patrols Shenzhen Airport’s terminals.
A sister robot, the E‑Patrol Robot Sheriff, debuted at a railway station in Henan province. It monitors humidity and temperature, cross‑checking commuters against criminal databases. On its inaugural day, the robot detected a fire, its air‑monitoring system alerting staff and averting a larger disaster.
1 Execution Vans That Harvest Organs
The CCP has long justified capital punishment as essential for social order, traditionally employing firing squads. Since 2010, lethal injection has become the preferred method, but many rural jurisdictions balk at the expense of transporting prisoners to centralized execution facilities. To solve this, mobile execution vans and buses have emerged.
In small towns, condemned individuals are strapped to stretchers and loaded into these specialized vehicles. A cocktail of drugs induces unconsciousness, followed by cardiac arrest. A technician, overseen by a third‑party witness, administers the lethal injection while a video feed records the procedure to ensure compliance with state regulations. After death, the victim’s organs are harvested and stored in ice‑boxed containers.
Human‑rights groups allege the vans fuel a lucrative organ‑trade market, especially since a range of offenses—including tax fraud and corruption—still carry the death penalty. In 2019, a London tribunal found China guilty of harvesting organs from political prisoners, particularly targeting Falun Gong adherents. Reports claim surgeons extracted eyes, hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs, and skin, sometimes while the victims remained alive.
Why These Top 10 Ways Matter
Each of these ten examples illustrates how technology, once heralded as a force for progress, can be repurposed into tools of control and coercion. From bathroom stalls that monitor your toilet‑paper usage to robots that wield tasers, the Chinese state’s relentless push for surveillance is reshaping daily life into something eerily reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode. Understanding these mechanisms is the first step toward recognizing the broader implications for privacy, autonomy, and human rights worldwide.