
Starting in 2009, Beijing Internet cafes will photograph every user - theoneill
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081017-beijing-smile-youre-on-internet-cafe-camera.html
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maxklein
The reality of the situation: When I was in china over a few months in
2007/2008, I spent a lot of time in internet cafes. What would happen is that
I'd go in, and ask to use the internet. They'd ask me for a passport. I'd say
I didn't bring mine. They would then take out a card with a chinese persons
face on it (i.e, an already registered internet card with some random person
on it), and type those details in. I could then go do what I wanted. They had
several of those cards with various people on them. This was true in 4 or 5
different cities. I never showed my passport and they never insisted that I
leave.

So, even though they build in these mechanisms, there is little enforcement,
and the internet cafe owners are more interested in making money than in
following some government regulation.

By the way, when we say internet cafe here, in china, it's not usually like a
10 seat cafe. It's usually a pretty big hall with 100-200 computers, you can
smoke in there, and it's usually packed with people.

