China Installs Spyware on Phones of Tourists Entering Xinjiang

China Installs Spyware on Phones of Tourists Entering Xinjiang
Police patrolling as Muslims leave the Id Kah Mosque after the morning prayer on Eid al-Fitr in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, on June 26, 2017. Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
Eva Fu
Eva Fu
Reporter
|Updated:

Chinese authorities are obtaining personal data from the phones of tourists entering China’s far western region of Xinjiang, using a secretly installed mobile app, according to a joint investigation by Western media outlets.

At the border crossing from Kyrgyzstan to the Xinjiang region, tourists are asked to unlock and hand over their phones and computers to border agents, who then take the devices into a separate room to scan them, according to the investigation by The Guardian, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German-based radio network NDR, The New York Times, and Motherboard (part of Vice).

Eva Fu
Eva Fu
Reporter
Eva Fu is an award-winning, New York-based journalist for The Epoch Times focusing on U.S. politics, U.S.-China relations, religious freedom, and human rights. Contact Eva at [email protected]
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