According to the South China Morning Post, a social media uproar has erupted in China following the police visit of a 20-year-old student whose parents had placed surveillance camera in her room.
Li, the student who was only identified by her first name, left her home situated in another district and went to Beijing Police Station on July 26th. The second year university student said that she suffered from parental abuse with their setting up of cameras meant to watch everything she does. Whenever she made mistakes, they would hit her and threw down her phone on the floor.
The adolescent said that this form of parenting had created immense suffering for herself and that it was this suffering that drove her to seek independence. She intended to get some part-time jobs around Beijing so as to sustain herself independently and free from control by these parents.
Fearing the possibility of being reported missing by her parents or causing disturbance, Li had contacted the police for assistance. According to Officer Zhang Chuanbin, what Li’s parents were doing only showed love but not care. He therefore called her parents telling them that adults needed their personal spaces too.
Her parents promised to take off the camera after Zhang intervened and she returned back home later on. But this case ignited anger on online platforms because many people believed it was an invasion privacy.
“Awful indeed! Even at twenty years old there is no private space,” read one comment on Weibo as expressed by a user.
Another person remarked about some Chinese parents: “Children are not property; they are separate individuals.”
“It’s worse than prison” said someone else
“She fought back bravely and was wise enough not to get into trouble when she approached law enforcement for help,” observed another commenter quoting an example.
However this is just one isolated incident. In Jiangsu province in June a mother became famous after making public compliments concerning how surveillance camera in his son’s bedroom “accompanied” him during studies. This measure was aimed at improving his academic performance.
A similar incident happened in 2019 when a 14-year-old boy from Jiangsu called the police when he learnt that his father planned to put a camera inside his room. The man argued that this was aimed at helping the child not to become an addict of video gaming during times when both him and his wife were away, which ignited a huge debate about privacy.
However, SCMP indicates that many Chinese parents still mount cameras inside their children’s bedrooms even though it is illegal to read minors’ letters, diaries or intercept online communications unless there is an emergency as stated in China’s Minor Protection Law.
