“Find out how the Chinese company ZTE helped Venezuela build a social control mechanism” – 14^th November 2018

The Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE is helping Venezuela to build a system that supervises the behaviours of citizens through a new identification card.  The “homeland licence”, that is being used by the government to collect votes, concerns many.  In the headquarters of telecommunications giant ZTE Corp, the delegation learnt that China, through the use of smart cards, is developing a system that should help Pekín follow social, political and economic behaviour. The homeland licence generates concern amongst some citizens and human rights groups that believe it to be a tool for the government of Nicolás Maduro to monitor the population and share the scarce resources amongst people loyal to him.  The card transmits data from its users to computer servers.  The licence is linked to the giving out of food subsidies, health and other social programs from the government, on which the majority of Venezuelans depend to survive. And ZTE, whose role in the homeland Project is detailed here for the first time, is at the heart of the program.