Case File
Xinjiang IJOP Risk Lists and the Detention Chain
How application fields, police checking, and the OHCHR assessment connect data labels to liberty.
Key eventsFull case chronology and key recordsExpand
Xinjiang expanded checkpoints, home visits, and data-driven policing
Identity, phone, vehicle, travel, and household information was collected more intensively for grassroots risk screening.
IJOP combined data and generated investigation tasks
The police application received personal and behavioral information and sent alleged anomalies to grassroots officers for further checks.
Reverse engineering exposed fields and workflow
Human Rights Watch analyzed a police application and documented links among data input, risk flags, and handling of people.
OHCHR placed technical screening in the context of mass detention
OHCHR found that serious violations may constitute crimes against humanity while recording China's counterterrorism and vocational-education position.
Contents
Case chain: Xinjiang IJOP Risk Lists and the Detention Chain
What happened
After 2016, Xinjiang expanded checkpoints, home visits and police collection of identity, phone, vehicle, travel and household data. The IJOP application combined those inputs and generated risk leads for grassroots officers. In 2019, Human Rights Watch reverse-engineered public fields and workflows, showing links between data entry, risk flags and the handling of people. In 2022, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights placed this technical screening in the context of mass arbitrary detention. [7] [10]
How data became a detention lead
The application was not a court judgment, but it turned ordinary behaviour into an anomaly that police could act on. Travel, communications, family ties or religious activity could enter a risk model and trigger a grassroots task. Police, political-legal offices and local grids carried out visits, questioning, device searches and transfers. The model offered no public appeal route, and people on a list could not know why they had been marked.
Facts and limits
Technical analysis establishes that IJOP collected multiple kinds of personal data and generated police tasks. The OHCHR assessment records mass detention, torture and other serious violations in Xinjiang and says the conduct may constitute crimes against humanity. Chinese authorities describe the measures as counterterrorism, deradicalization and vocational education. Public materials cannot identify every person on a list or assign each detention from application fields alone. [10] [12]
How the power works
The CCP defines “risk” broadly enough to turn ordinary life into a security problem. IJOP does not predict crime so much as expand the range of conduct police may intervene in. Data produces a list, the list produces targets, and detention produces obedience. This is old political screening automated through software. Identity, faith and family ties become suspicion that the state can invoke at will.
Evidence boundary
Human Rights Watch’s application analysis and the OHCHR assessment establish the institutional link between data systems and detention. They do not replace an independent investigation of every case. Full findings require device images, internal task records, detention documents and testimony. The evidence already shows IJOP converting personal information into state power over people’s movement and liberty.
What the available sources establish
Technical analysis of an application linked to Xinjiang's Integrated Joint Operations Platform found that it aggregated multiple forms of personal data and generated leads for police follow-up.
The OHCHR assessment concluded that large-scale arbitrary detention and related abuses in Xinjiang may constitute international crimes, while individual responsibility requires further independent investigation.
The U.S. Treasury stated in sanctions actions that several Chinese technology companies participated in biometric surveillance targeting ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
Sources
Regulation on Public Security Video Image Information Systemsprimary-recordLive
MPS Rules for Public Security Video Information Systemsprimary-recordUnavailable
Personal Information Protection Law of the PRCprimary-recordLive
Data Security Law of the PRCprimary-recordLive
Provisions on the Administration of Internet User Account Informationprimary-recordLive
Provisions on Algorithmic Recommendation in Internet Information Servicesprimary-recordLive
China's Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Apptechnical-researchLive
We Chat, They Watchtechnical-researchLive
Censored Contagion IItechnical-researchLive
OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in Xinjiangofficial-findingLive
Treasury Sanctions on Biometric Surveillance Technologyofficial-findingLive
2024 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: Chinagovernment-reportLive
Official Accountability Record on the Henan Red-Code Incidentprimary-recordRedirected
Investigation into Red Health Codes Assigned to Henan Bank Depositorsinvestigative-reportingLive
CECC 2025 Annual Reportgovernment-reportLive
Human Rights Watch Report on Detained White Paper Protestersinvestigative-reportingLive
Amnesty International Interviews One Year after the White Paper Movementinvestigative-reportingLive