China’s mass DNA database on citizens set to expand with $8.7 million in new equipment – China latest political and current affairs news

Human Rights Watch released a report on May 15 claiming that China’s database of citizen DNA information has expanded beyond 40 million entries. While still accounting for only 3 percent of Chinese citizens — for comparison, the U.S. has DNA records on 4 percent of its citizens and the U.K. has 8 percent — the database is now the world’s largest of its kind. Furthermore, the report also brings together evidence on a number of data collection events conducted “without oversight, transparency, or privacy protections” under the authority of Article 130 of the Criminal Procedure Law — but many, if not most, entries are not of criminals or directly related to a criminal case.

One piece of evidence from the report, that authorities in restive Xinjiang Province in western China purchased $8.7 million in DNA testing equipment for a large-scale collection, has been confirmed to the Associated Press by state security officials. Human Rights Watch also reported the purchase of an additional $2.9 million in equipment. A computational biologist told the AP that such equipment “could be used to profile up to 10,000 DNA samples a day and several million a year.” Last year, the authorities in Xinjiang began requiring residents — a plurality of which identify as Uyghur Muslims — to submit DNA samples and other personal data to apply for a passport.

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