As you're walking along the street, China's newest surveillance technology could soon be watching you – from space.
Scientists in Beijing have created 'the world's most powerful spy camera' which can pick out facial details from distances exceeding 63 miles (100km).
It means the spy camera could potentially be in space aboard a floating satellite while clearly seeing faces of people on Earth's surface.
It could also take high-resolution images of foreign military satellites operated by other nations that are also orbiting Earth, the South China Morning Post reported.
The technology, detailed by the scientists in a new paper, could be launched aboard a satellite in the near future.
But, unsurprisingly, the powerful laser-based system has sparked worries.
Robert Morton, author and member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), called it a 'massive security concern'.
'Millimeter resolution from 60+ miles up? That’s next-level surveillance,' he said in a post on X (Twitter).
Meanwhile, Julia Aymonier, head of digital transformation at API, posted to LinkedIn: 'Big Brother is watching you!'
She added: 'The future of space-based surveillance is here, and it's more powerful than we imagined.'
And Natallia Catarina, CEO at Beam Wallet, said: 'Now only clouds will save us from Chinese spies.'
The spy camera has been newly developed by China’s Academy of Sciences’ Aerospace Information Research Institute in Beijing.
It uses a system called synthetic aperture lidar (SAL), a remote sensing technology that sends out a pulse of light energy and then records the amount of that energy reflected back.
Capable of operating day and night, SAL creates 2D and 3D reconstructions of surfaces of the Earth in various weather conditions.
Because it relies on optical waves, it's capable of creating imagery with much finer resolution and better detail – described as a 'quantum leap'.
The experts conducted a successful test across Qinghai Lake in China's northwest, with the SAL device on one side and the target 63.2 miles (101.8km) away.
They achieved 'exceptional' imaging clarity at this distance, as reported by South China Morning Post, which is around about where the boundary of space starts.
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