The People’s Liberation Army has come up with comprehensive counter-espionage software since it lifted a ban on its soldiers using smartphones in their spare time, state media reported on Monday.
All devices used by PLA soldiers should be installed with special software created by the army’s IT experts and domestic mobile operators, so their activities can be closely monitored by the army’s newly established internet administration centres, according to Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily.
The software aims to filter all “unhealthy and negative messages” that could harm the army’s political spirit and morale, curb access to sensitive information that might lead to leaking of military intelligence, the report said. It also tracks off-duty officers incase they visit “unwanted places”.
The long-term ban on troops using smartphones was lifted last July, and a pilot scheme has been tested by a brigade of the PLA’s 16th unit.
Military officials had to come up with new training methods to merge political education and combat strategies into smartphone apps and games to attract new recruits, who were born in the 1990s and raised in the internet era, it added.
The move has been portrayed by the party mouthpiece as the military response to the inevitable trend of people browsing online for their daily fix of entertainment and communication.
Jiang Xinfeng, a military expert from the PLA’s Academy of Military Sciences, said the ban was lifted because the central leadership had realised that it was virtually impossible to “completely cut off” the world’s biggest combat force seeking to cruise the information highway.
“But soldiers should understand that their smartphones should not leak any military information while surfing the internet, such as to their contacts, ” Jiang said in a television interview .
People’s Daily said soldiers were allowed to use smartphones to access the internet during extracurricular activities, days off, holidays and during other downtime, but the browsing should be done via encrypted mobile terminals or at military internet cafes to prevent any leakage of information.
The report said soldiers were prohibited from taking photographs at garrisons with their smartphones and sharing them, while officers sent on peacekeeping missions abroad had also been urged to be cautious when receiving invitation messages from “foreign friends” via social media.
