# China surveillance of foreign nationals

> Live situation record from CLSTR: https://clstr.news/situations/china-surveillance-of-foreign-nationals
> Updated: 2026-08-02T17:09:14.000Z. Sources: 7. Developments: 2.

Researcher Marc Hofer, based in Amsterdam, has repeatedly exposed China’s extensive monitoring of foreign residents. In Zhangjiakou, a former 2022 Winter Olympics venue, he uncovered an unsecured police dashboard – the Dynamic Control Platform for Foreign Personnel – that listed more than 700 foreign residents and roughly 12,000 individual records, including fugitives, Hong Kong and Taiwan citizens, and over 300 foreign journalists, some of whom had never visited the city. Entries contained passport numbers, contact details, birth dates, marital status, occupations, religious affiliation and even camera sightings at traffic intersections, markets, malls and a mosque. The platform showed recent logins from multiple police stations and was linked to Beijing‑based surveillance firm Origin Dynamic, which filed a 2023 patent for a similar interface. The site was taken offline in May 2024.

A separate breach revealed an unsecured public‑security bureau webpage in Jiangjiao that granted direct access to a massive database of foreign residents from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and additional countries such as Israel, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan. Pre‑filled login fields allowed Hofer to download large volumes of records over several months before the page was removed in May 2024. Both disclosures illustrate the breadth of China’s domestic surveillance of foreigners and have raised international concerns about privacy and security for the affected individuals.

## Timeline

### 2026-08-02: China's Secret Surveillance Database Exposed

A researcher uncovered an unsecured Chinese public‑security web page exposing a massive database of foreign residents' personal data, including health, travel and demographic details, before it was removed in ​

3 sources. https://clstr.news/cluster/chinas-secret-surveillance-database-exposed

### 2026-08-02: China's surveillance platform tracks thousands of foreigners in Zhangjiakou

Researcher Marc Hofer discovered a Chinese police dashboard in Zhangjiakou that tracked over 12,000 foreigners, revealing detailed personal data and linking the system to surveillance firm Origin Dynamic.

4 sources. https://clstr.news/cluster/chinese-surveillance-platform-tracks-foreign-nationals-in-zhangjiakou

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Cite as: China surveillance of foreign nationals. CLSTR, https://clstr.news/situations/china-surveillance-of-foreign-nationals