Iain Duncan Smith
The world leader in artificial intelligence, China, already uses the technology in a range of systems, including the surveillance of minority groups such as Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and Tibetans. Here, data from security cameras, mobile signal trackers, and people’s spending habits are passed through sophisticated AI software to determine their risk profiles. If they are caught in the dragnet, the consequences can be severe. But it is when combined with genomic surveillance that AI’s potential becomes truly dystopian.
Human Rights Watch has said that, within key parts of China, the authorities forcibly collect DNA samples from every male and employ AI to analyse them. This gives authorities access to an enormous and growing repository of information with wide-ranging applications. Under the Made in China 2025 strategy, genomics, like AI, is classified as a priority industry for global domination by the Chinese Communist Party. When considered alongside a domestic law that compels all Chinese firms to assist and cooperate with state intelligence work, it should be of great concern that the world’s largest genomics firm is the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI).
BGI is the largest company you have probably never heard of, and potentially the most dangerous. It is collaborating on genetic research programmes designed to enhance soldiers’ performances at high altitude, while also operating as the country’s national gene bank and key government laboratory. With investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak exposing the extent of China’s biological weapons programme, any state-affiliated genomics company with links to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) must face greater scrutiny. It is the dual-use nature of the genomics industry that makes China’s dominance so dangerous. BGI developed prenatal tests in partnership with the PLA, which are, astonishingly, sold in private clinics throughout the world including the UK.
These tests, used to determine any abnormalities, allow access to the genomic data of both mother and foetus. Women taking the tests sign a waiver where, buried in the small print, it states samples can be reanalysed. Possessing someone’s genomic data equates to knowing everything about them. It reveals their ancestry, probable height, eye and hair colour, susceptibility to certain diseases and appropriate drug reactions, and even aspects of their character, such as addictive tendencies. The implications of the CCP harnessing this information and applying AI technology to it are staggering.
Extrapolating this scenario to a population level and combining bulk DNA data with sophisticated AI analysis, China could predict which countries would require specific drugs years in advance, allowing them to control supply chains and gain significant strategic leverage over international competitors. The United States has already banned BGI subsidiaries, with its National Security Commission on AI warning that “BGI may be serving, knowingly or unknowingly, as a global collection mechanism for Chinese government genetic databases”. As usual, the UK has dragged its feet and has yet to exclude BGI from securing government contracts. In October 2021, the Government was questioned over its relationship with BGI, initially responding that it had no contractual links. After a series of evasive responses, six months later a ministerial correction revealed that BGI had in fact secured a multi-million pound contract involving the diagnosis of Covid tests across Britain. This is particularly startling, given that as far back as March 2014 the then-science minister had identified BGI as a “danger point in the eco system”.
The issue here is the coming together of genomics and AI, opening the door to a huge range of new potential threats, if found in the wrong hands. Some of us have already forced the Government to scrap Huawei telecoms and insisted Hikvision surveillance cameras be banned. Now we are fighting for action on genomics. The reality is that the scale of the threat from China is growing. If the US is responding to this, why can’t the UK?
The Telegraph
