Der Spiegel describes the Chinese government’s surveillance of a minority population in the western part of the country.

Beijing is equipping the far-western province with state-of-the-art surveillance technology, with cameras illuminating every street all over the region, from the capital Urumqi to the most remote mountain village. Iris scanners and WiFi sniffers are in use in stations, airports and at the ubiquitous checkpoints — tools and programs that allow data traffic from wireless networks to be monitored.

The data is then collated by an “integrated joint operations platform” that also stores further data on the populace — from consumer habits to banking activity, health status and indeed the DNA profile of every single inhabitant of Xinjiang.

Anyone with a potentially suspicious data trail can be detained. The government has built up a grid of hundreds of re-education camps. Tens of thousands of people have disappeared into them in recent months. Zenz estimates the number to be closer to hundreds of thousands. More precise figures are difficult to obtain. Censorship in Xinjiang is the strictest in China and its authorities the most inscrutable.

Later the article talks about reeducation camps and a point system that rates how “trustworthy” families are.