What a silly article: "download the controls to the private sector" indeed. The government already owns the telcos, half the banks, the only domestic interbank transfer system and the only domestic travel reservation system so they have your IMEI, real time location and history, network traffic, bank balance and payment and employment history and travel plans anyway. And that of your friends/relatives. They certainly…
Yes, the governments owns telcos etc. Yes, they probably have files on people they consider a threat, such as human rights activists. But to think that all that data is accessible in some kind of coherent manner is ridiculous. This is China, where banks cannot even access information between physical branches of the same bank because of its bizarrely inefficient IT infrastructure. The telcos have been trying to enforce the "real-name" policy for SIM cards for months, yet you can still easily buy and use a SIM card on the street.
They definitely need help from an app, because private Chinese tech companies are somewhat competent compared to the government IT sector.
Do you really feel safer in a country where you can get jailed without trial, where you can jailed, deported and banned from re-entry based on a urine test at the whim of some provincial government official that you crossed paths with? In China, the biggest threat is the government.