According to observers, a car, a plot of land, a small financial transaction, and even every aspect of a citizen’s daily life now face the risk of being placed on the “scales” of the Ministry of Public Security’s “Internet of Everything” technology.
If implemented nationwide, this initiative would create a massive database system, seamlessly interconnected to enable regulatory agencies to easily identify, retrieve, and control information with unprecedented efficiency.
However, there is a thorny question that cannot be avoided: when the state holds the power to control every aspect of citizens’ lives, who will be the one to oversee that power?
This is a fair measure of the limits of state power, the boundaries of privacy, and the survival of institutions protecting human rights in the face of the threat of excessive surveillance.
In theory, no one denies the benefits that the Internet of Things can bring to the national governance system. Assigning identification codes to physical entities and economic transaction chains helps ensure transparent traceability of goods, identify unusual cash flows, and prevent trade fraud.
More importantly, it minimizes the cost of verifying information for the business community. When data streams are synchronized and linked, the loopholes previously obscured by decentralized management systems are eliminated.
However, the law of technology dictates that the broader the scope of data connectivity, the greater the accompanying risks. A platform originally designed for administrative management can easily become a tool for extensive surveillance if there are no sufficiently robust legal safeguards to restrain it.
The core issue lies in what types of data are permitted to be collected, who has access to this treasure trove of sensitive information, and how it will be used to serve national governance objectives.
When behavioral data, transaction histories, and all social activities are linked together without independent oversight mechanisms, the fragile line between government management and blatant intrusion into private life will be officially erased.
Furthermore, a system that centralizes vast amounts of personal data serves as prime targets for cyberattacks—not only compromising the privacy of millions of people but also posing a direct threat to national economic security.
Most alarming of all, the wave of the Internet of Things (IoT) is intertwined with the Ministry of Public Security’s trend toward expanding its power without limits. But as the scope of data collection continues to expand, the question of checks and balances on power has become more urgent than ever.
When a single agency serves as both a policy-maker and the direct manager of highly classified data systems, while also wielding powerful law enforcement tools and sanctions, the accountability mechanism is easily rendered ineffective.
Concerns about a police-state system in the current context are a legitimate self-defense reaction by society as a whole to the following questions: Where are the limits of the Ministry of Public Security’s power, and what tools do citizens have at their disposal to protect their legitimate rights when they are violated?
For this reason, the Internet of Things (IoT) project cannot be measured solely by technological ambition or the number of servers the state owns.
Public opinion holds that the more data collected from citizens, the more the Ministry of Public Security must be transparent and accountable to the public. Without a strict, independent legal framework established by the National Assembly and civil society organizations, digital transformation will not represent progress in national governance but rather a system of social control that far exceeds the necessary limits of a civilized society.
Trà My – Thoibao.de
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The Ministry of Public Security’s “Identification of All Things”: Digital Transformation or a Tool to Tighten Social Control?
“… The Ministry of Public Security’s policy of ‘identifying all things’ raises questions about the boundary between digital transformation governance and the risk of increased social control.”
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