What Does Beijing Want With Your Medical Records?
The 2015 Anthem hack raises chilling questions about surveillance within America’s borders.
June 20, 2019
Why would China steal the personal medical information of nearly 80 million Americans? That’s been the question since the Justice Department unsealed an indictment of two Chinese nationals for the 2015 hacking attack on Anthem, the health-care giant.
Chinese cybercriminals have stolen all sorts of trade secrets from U.S. companies over the past decade or more, ranging from weapons blueprints to details for manufacturing solar panels. The thefts have been...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-does-beijing-want-with-your-medical-records-11561069899
Chinese cybercriminals have stolen all sorts of trade secrets from U.S. companies over the past decade or more, ranging from weapons blueprints to details for manufacturing solar panels. The thefts have been wide-ranging, but they’ve shared a common target: technical data and records that could give Beijing an economic or military advantage over its global rivals.
...
https://www.reddit.com/r/EmergingRisks/comments/c448l5/what_does_beijing_want_with_your_medical_records/Perhaps China is using commercial espionage to gain a leg up in the global medical-services industry. But recent trends point to an even more unsettling use of the data: China is gathering the pieces needed to create in the U.S. a version of its omnipresent surveillance state.
Chinese cybercriminals have stolen all sorts of trade secrets from U.S. companies over the past decade or more, ranging from weapons blueprints to details for manufacturing solar panels. The thefts have been wide-ranging, but they’ve shared a common target: technical data and records that could give Beijing an economic or military advantage over its global rivals.
The theft of medical-insurance records deviates from that pattern. This crime is typically associated with fraudulent insurance claims, but there’s no indication the hackers were engaging in that type of scam, nor any reason to believe the Chinese government would. Even North Korea, which desperately needs cash, doesn’t do that.
Perhaps China is using commercial espionage to gain a leg up in the global medical-services industry. But recent trends point to an even more unsettling use of the data: China is gathering the pieces needed to create in the U.S. a version of its omnipresent surveillance state.
Chinese citizens have long been carefully monitored in all aspects of their lives. In recent years Beijing has supplemented its internal spying with high-tech methods, such as culling data from digitized personal records—including medical records—and surveillance cameras equipped with facial-recognition software. Beijing examines all data passing through popular phone apps, and even looks for “abnormal” electricity consumption among citizens.
There’s evidence that China is quietly deploying those same surveillance tools and analytics in America. Consider the presence of millions of surveillance cameras made by state-backed Chinese manufacturers like Hikvision. They could pose a security risk, according to Carolyn Bartholomew, chairman of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission. The fear is that the cameras could be remotely monitored by Beijing. Accordingly, last year the U.S. government ordered Hikvision cameras removed from sensitive facilities, but untold numbers of cameras remain elsewhere, potentially spying on regular U.S. citizens in addition to traditional intelligence targets.
Other goods have sparked similar worries. Chinese-manufactured drones are used across the U.S. for industrial purposes, despite Department of Homeland Security warnings last month that the data they collect can be redirected easily to Beijing.
There is even concern that Chinese espionage could target data collected by dating apps. In March, U.S. officials ordered Grindr to shed its Chinese investors for fear that they would tap into the company’s sensitive personal data to spy on or blackmail U.S. users.
It takes no great stretch of the imagination to see that Beijing could combine its well-honed espionage tools with the reams of information it has stolen to create a new surveillance network in the home of its most powerful geopolitical rival.
That fear is even more credible when you consider that China has been caught using its exports to spy in other countries. African Union officials discovered last year that Chinese surveillance and IT equipment—intended to secure AU headquarters—was being used by Beijing to spy on them. Similar fears are sprouting in Ecuador, which has a nationwide emergency-response and video-surveillance system built by Chinese companies.
Given its well-documented history of spying and hacking, Beijing doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. It is incumbent on Washington to dig deeper and, as needed, push back hard against any Chinese effort to extend its surveillance state into North America.
Appeared in the June 21, 2019, print edition of the Wall Street Journal.
當他們偷走近8千萬美國人的醫療記錄時，收割器官是否中國的想法？Perhaps China is using commercial espionage to gain a leg up in the global medical-services industry. But recent trends point to an even more unsettling use of the data: China is gathering the pieces needed to create in the U.S. a version of its omnipresent surveillance state.
Chinese citizens have long been carefully monitored in all aspects of their lives. In recent years Beijing has supplemented its internal spying with high-tech methods, such as culling data from digitized personal records—including medical records—and surveillance cameras equipped with facial-recognition software. Beijing examines all data passing through popular phone apps, and even looks for “abnormal” electricity consumption among citizens.
There’s evidence that China is quietly deploying those same surveillance tools and analytics in America. Consider the presence of millions of surveillance cameras made by state-backed Chinese manufacturers like Hikvision. They could pose a security risk, according to Carolyn Bartholomew, chairman of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission. The fear is that the cameras could be remotely monitored by Beijing. Accordingly, last year the U.S. government ordered Hikvision cameras removed from sensitive facilities, but untold numbers of cameras remain elsewhere, potentially spying on regular U.S. citizens in addition to traditional intelligence targets.
Other goods have sparked similar worries. Chinese-manufactured drones are used across the U.S. for industrial purposes, despite Department of Homeland Security warnings last month that the data they collect can be redirected easily to Beijing.
There is even concern that Chinese espionage could target data collected by dating apps. In March, U.S. officials ordered Grindr to shed its Chinese investors for fear that they would tap into the company’s sensitive personal data to spy on or blackmail U.S. users.
It takes no great stretch of the imagination to see that Beijing could combine its well-honed espionage tools with the reams of information it has stolen to create a new surveillance network in the home of its most powerful geopolitical rival.
That fear is even more credible when you consider that China has been caught using its exports to spy in other countries. African Union officials discovered last year that Chinese surveillance and IT equipment—intended to secure AU headquarters—was being used by Beijing to spy on them. Similar fears are sprouting in Ecuador, which has a nationwide emergency-response and video-surveillance system built by Chinese companies.
Given its well-documented history of spying and hacking, Beijing doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. It is incumbent on Washington to dig deeper and, as needed, push back hard against any Chinese effort to extend its surveillance state into North America.
Appeared in the June 21, 2019, print edition of the Wall Street Journal.
Was Organ Harvesting On China's Mind When They Stole The Medical Records Of Nearly 80 Million Americans?
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