Legal basis

State mandate; no independent judicial authorisation process reported

Oversight

None independent identified; internal Communist Party and state administration only

A national video surveillance infrastructure linked to the Ministry of Public Security, combining facial recognition with large-scale camera networks. Skynet dates from the mid-2000s as the urban system; Sharp Eyes is the rural and community extension, notable for integrating street-level and private or household cameras into wider monitoring platforms. A regulatory split emerged in 2025 and 2026 that is worth recording precisely because of what it does not cover. The Cyberspace Administration and Ministry of Public Security's Measures for the Security Management of Facial Recognition Technology Applications took effect on 1 June 2025, and a 2026 enforcement campaign has restricted forced commercial face scanning, with fines issued to businesses. Police systems are untouched by it. The regulation constrains private-sector use while leaving state surveillance capability intact. Le Monde reported in April 2026 on public security cameras automatically identifying ordinary citizens for minor traffic infractions in Shanghai, and noted there is no official national camera count. Figures of 600 to 700 million cameras circulating in secondary coverage are estimates and should be treated as such. This entry rests substantially on human rights researchers and investigative journalism operating under significant state restriction on information. That caveat is as important as the entry itself.

Source: IPVM technical analysis; Georgetown CSET; Brookings Institution · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

State “Strike Hard” campaign policy; described by Human Rights Watch as contrary to Chinese law and international human rights obligations

Oversight

None independent; documented externally through investigative research rather than official reporting

An algorithmic policing platform in Xinjiang that aggregates personal and behavioural data to generate alerts on individuals considered suspicious, which are transmitted to police for follow-up. Human Rights Watch, writing in April 2026, continues to describe IJOP in the present tense as a mass surveillance tool in place in the region. Labour transfer programmes tied to this surveillance apparatus have expanded from 11 to 14 provinces since a 2020 ASPI report first documented them, with new destinations including Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu. Uyghur returnees to China are reported to face facial recognition flagging at airports and immediate police interview, with documented cases of returnees disappearing within weeks of arrival. A note on a claim this entry does not make: material circulating about an IJOP 2.0 upgrade during 2026 traces to a low-quality source and is not recorded here pending primary corroboration. An earlier version of this entry referred to that upgrade; it has been removed. As with the Skynet entry, this rests on researchers working under significant state restriction on independent verification.

Source: Human Rights Watch, “China’s Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App” · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Not disclosed. China has no independent judicial authorisation requirement for domestic police surveillance technology comparable to Western warrant systems

Oversight

None independent of the state disclosed in available reporting

A fleet of driverless police patrol vehicles equipped with 360-degree panoramic cameras, facial recognition and onboard AI processors, operating around the clock without officers aboard. Authorities describe the vehicles as identifying watchlisted individuals, fraudulent number plates and traffic or safety violations in real time, as part of a wider strategy of embedding AI into everyday policing and reducing reliance on human patrol officers.

Source: Reported via multiple outlets citing Chinese state media · last checked 2026-08-18

Legal basis

Not disclosed

Oversight

None independent of the state disclosed

Two separate Chinese manufacturers have placed humanoid robots into public-facing traffic policing roles, and the distinction between them matters because their deployments and figures are frequently conflated in coverage. SUPCON Information builds the T2, a 98kg humanoid using cameras, radar and onboard computing to identify traffic violations: riders without helmets, e-bikes carrying passengers, vehicles stopping across marked lines, and pedestrians crossing against signals. Reuters reported in August 2026 that 15 T2 units had operated in Hangzhou since May 2026, issuing more than 170,000 warnings, with SUPCON claiming a fall of over 40% in monthly helmetless riding and stop-line violations and violation-recognition accuracy above 95%. Reuters stated it could not independently verify these figures and that Hangzhou traffic police did not respond to a request for comment. Reporting at the time put the wider total at nearly 50 robots across roughly eight cities in three provinces, with deployments expected to approach 200 by the end of 2026. AiMOGA Robotics, backed by carmaker Chery, builds a separate machine, the 'Intelligent Police Unit R001', reported by Xinhua as deployed alongside human officers in Wuhu, Anhui Province, from 10 January 2026. AiMOGA has discussed exporting police robots but its executives note this requires fitting local law-enforcement IT systems, obtaining certifications and complying with data-protection rules, given the machines' cameras and sensors. This is materially different from the autonomous patrol vehicles tracked separately: those are driverless mobile surveillance platforms, while these are physically embodied robotic agents placed into public-facing safety roles. All deployment counts and effectiveness figures here originate from the manufacturers and news-agency reporting rather than police procurement documentation, and should be read as company claims. No individual municipal public security bureau has published its own verified unit count.

Source: Reuters, August 2026 (syndicated); Xinhua and People's Daily, January 2026 · last checked 2026-08-24