China’s spy-hunting campaign has a new target: ‘illegal’ weather stations. The National Meteorological Administration in China has declared that any weather station that it has not approved may pose a “potential threat to national security” as they could be collecting data that could be used to aid in espionage and other hostile activities. This has prompted Chinese authorities to conduct a campaign of inspecting and shutting down any unapproved weather stations that have popped up in the country. The campaign is reportedly being led by the Ministry of Land and Resources and has already been successful in shutting down over a thousand such sites nationwide. The move is being seen as part of China’s broader effort to tighten control on data collection and its potential misuse.
