6 ms·

China expands surveillance of sewage to police illegal drug use

93 points by dsr12 8y ago

wavefunction 8y ago
If only they could expand their surveillance to all the fentanyl and carfentanil their country is exporting :(
baybal2 8y ago
First used in Shenzhen a decade ago, to detect people flushing PCB etchants to sewers
codezero 8y ago
The US uses this kind data for epidemiology studies. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was used for law enforcement purposes too.
- duxup 8y ago
  You'd think it would eventually come up in a court case. Granted they could use the data and then somehow make up an excuse for coming up with another reason to observe something but that too would be kinda clunky and obvious and would come up.
  - sueders101 8y ago
    "Granted they could use the data and then somehow make up an excuse for coming up with another reason to observe something but that too would be kinda clunky and obvious and would come up." It's actually a very common technique known as parallel construction. Apologies in advance if you were being sarcastic; I'm not great at reading tone in comments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_United_States_Drug_Enforcement_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_U...
    - duxup 8y ago
      Doing it for say drugs in a sewer would seem to be a much harder deal I would think. You gotta come up with a better excuse than say a car stop.
  - ocfx 8y ago
    You can't determine where the waste came from
deltadeltadelta 8y ago
The Chinese government should probably check the drinking water as well then... "it is acknowledged that nearly 14 percent of the city's sewage is discharged into rivers which serve as Shanghai's water sources without being treated." https://www.healthandsafetyinshanghai.com/shanghai-water.html https://www.healthandsafetyinshanghai.com/shanghai-water.htm... "At least a million tonnes of raw sewage pours into the waters of Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta in southern China every day...Air pollution is so obvious that everyone can see it,” he said. “But the water problem has not had enough public attention.” https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2087815/southern-chinas-million-tonne-raw-sewage-problem https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/20...
- fyfy18 8y ago
  London has a pretty big problem with raw sewage flowing into the Thames too, fortunately it’s not used as drinking water source though. Each year at least 40m litres of untreated sewage flows into the Thames in London, as the Victoria sewers are at capacity. There is currently an ongoing project to upgrade them which should be launched in 2022: http://www.tideway.london/ http://www.tideway.london/ Last year a water company was fined £20m for dumping 2 billion litres over the last few years further upstream: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/thames-water-hit-with-record-fine-for-huge-sewage-leaks https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/thames-w...
  - vkou 8y ago
    > fortunately it’s not used as drinking water source though. If it were, I imagine the incentives to fix this problems would align differently then "Let's maybe get it fixed by 2022." The same could be said for Victoria, BC, which treats the ocean like a giant garbage dump, where it dumps its untreated sewage.
- icebraining 8y ago
  "The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay / They drink at lunch in San José." Seems like Tom Lehrer's Pollution is still relevant - just other countries.
emptybits 8y ago
In Canada our federal government also monitors wastewater for drug use and claims it's a practice from Europe. Though it doesn't carry a "war on drugs" tone. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/13-605-x/2018001/article/54922-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/13-605-x/2018001/article...
- fgheorghe 8y ago
  They do it in the uk too. But hey, when china does it, it is an issue.
- ryanlol 8y ago
  >claims it's a practice from Europe They've been doing this for a while in some European countries, yeah.
sn41 8y ago
Ironically open defecation now seems like a good privacy move :)
- spullara 8y ago
  No wonder it is so popular in San Francisco.
- jdoliner 8y ago
  This actually seems just barely within the realm of possibility of something a privacy bulwark like Richard Stallman could support
- 13of40 8y ago
  I remember reading back in the Bush era that when he travelled abroad he used a porta-potty so the Russians couldn't analyze his poo.
- waterhouse 8y ago
  Seriously, though. Given all the things drug addicts often do if driven to them, is it wise to give them an incentive to, say, poop into a bag and eventually throw it into someone else's trash? I was wondering whether the technology was at the level where it could track it down to an individual. Struck me as implausible, but then the article says "policing" and that it was successfully used to "help track down" a manufacturer, but further thought shows that "help track down" might just mean "it helped narrow it down to a neighborhood" or something. I'm sure they wouldn't install in every apartment things that take samples at every different tenant's toilets. But they might take very broad samples, and then, when they find positive results in one area, they could add more sampling to its sub-areas, and narrow it down progressively, and eventually say "We now have cause to search the rooms of everyone in this apartment building for drugs".
King-Aaron 8y ago
Report from Australia about monitoring this kind of thing: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/sewage-tests-reveal-wa-drug-problem/7677296 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/sewage-tests-reveal-wa... "West Australians are using about two tonnes of methamphetamine each year with a street value of $2 billion, wastewater tests have revealed."
madrox 8y ago
I'm curious if this kind of thing would be prohibited in the US on fourth amendment grounds or not, or would be considered probable cause for a warrant.
- pdkl95 8y ago
  Kyllo v United States created a bright line test: new technology used to view "details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion"[1] count as a "search" if and only if the technology is not "in general public use"[2]. Since the general public does not generally use technologies for detecting trace amounts of specific chemicals, this should require a warrant. Current technologies that are heading towards losing 4th Amendment protection might be IR thermal cameras and trigger-word based audio recording (Alexa et al). The general public is increasingly using both of these technologies. When someone convinces a judge the "general public use" threshold has been crossed, the technology in general (not just a specific product) can be used without a warrant. [1] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html [2] Ibid.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - nradov 8y ago
    There's no physical intrusion or accessing anything on private property with this technology. It's more like law enforcement sifting through a suspect's garbage after he puts it out at the curb, which can be done without a warrant.
    - vageli 8y ago
      This is not true in every state in the US.
  - ataturk 8y ago
mr_spothawk 8y ago
flush twice & piss out the window
codeisawesome 8y ago
Someone commented about the privacy concerns of monitoring sewage for drugs in the US, and were downvoted heavily. No theory is truly tin-foil in our world it’s beginning to seem.
- throwvondannen 8y ago
  I remember this comment. I think there were objections about the feasibility and precision of these methods, when in reality those concerns just don't matter at all. Raided the wrong house/neighborhood? I doubt the victim could do anything tangible about it. Even better, this is another tool in the box of vague reasons to search a place that can be just made up.
praptak 8y ago
How practical would be to treat your urine so that the metabolites become undetectable?
- krageon 8y ago
  The most practical way to prevent detection (if you're that worried) is to do your business in toilets that are in some way public. Your school, your job, the train station (if it has regularly cleaned toilets), etc.
jpatokal 8y ago
The title implies they're looking for drug users, but the article talks more about drug manufacturing? The city mentioned, Zhongshan, is infamous for meth labs. http://www.thatsmags.com/guangzhou/post/19596/police-seize-66kg-of-crystal-meth-1-6-mill-in-guangdong-drug-raid http://www.thatsmags.com/guangzhou/post/19596/police-seize-6...
aaron695 8y ago
Old news for Australia - > After sewerage testing conducted last year identified skyrocketing rates of methamphetamine use in Kalgoorlie, police launched Operation Horta which saw more than $1 million of ice seized in the first few months of 2017. It has a NATIONAL WASTE WATER DRUG MONITORING PROGRAM > Use of new, sophisticated geospatial analysis methods incorporating water treatment catchment maps and 2016 Australian Census mesh blocks gives more accurate and precise consumption estimates. Testing for methylamphetamine amphetamine cocaine 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) JWH-018 JWH-073 mephedrone methylone oxycodone fentanyl tobacco alcohol https://www.acic.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1491/f/national_wastewater_drug_monitoring_program_report_1_0.pdf https://www.acic.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1491/f/national_was...
rubenbe 8y ago
This method is used to determine the "coke capital". In 2016 the city of Antwerp in Belgium took the first place from London. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38328107/london-is-no-longer-europes-cocaine-capital-with-antwerp-taking-over http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38328107/london-is-no-...
merinowool 8y ago
If someone had invented inexpensive drug monitor that could be installed in a waste pipe outlet, then they could make billions.
- ataturk 8y ago
  Maybe Elizabeth Holmes could head up the project.

93 points by dsr12 8y ago

wavefunction 8y ago

If only they could expand their surveillance to all the fentanyl and carfentanil their country is exporting :(

baybal2 8y ago

First used in Shenzhen a decade ago, to detect people flushing PCB etchants to sewers

codezero 8y ago

The US uses this kind data for epidemiology studies. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was used for law enforcement purposes too.

duxup 8y ago
You'd think it would eventually come up in a court case. Granted they could use the data and then somehow make up an excuse for coming up with another reason to observe something but that too would be kinda clunky and obvious and would come up.
- sueders101 8y ago
  "Granted they could use the data and then somehow make up an excuse for coming up with another reason to observe something but that too would be kinda clunky and obvious and would come up." It's actually a very common technique known as parallel construction. Apologies in advance if you were being sarcastic; I'm not great at reading tone in comments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_United_States_Drug_Enforcement_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_U...
  - duxup 8y ago
    Doing it for say drugs in a sewer would seem to be a much harder deal I would think. You gotta come up with a better excuse than say a car stop.
- ocfx 8y ago
  You can't determine where the waste came from

deltadeltadelta 8y ago

The Chinese government should probably check the drinking water as well then... "it is acknowledged that nearly 14 percent of the city's sewage is discharged into rivers which serve as Shanghai's water sources without being treated." https://www.healthandsafetyinshanghai.com/shanghai-water.html https://www.healthandsafetyinshanghai.com/shanghai-water.htm... "At least a million tonnes of raw sewage pours into the waters of Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta in southern China every day...Air pollution is so obvious that everyone can see it,” he said. “But the water problem has not had enough public attention.” https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2087815/southern-chinas-million-tonne-raw-sewage-problem https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/20...

fyfy18 8y ago
London has a pretty big problem with raw sewage flowing into the Thames too, fortunately it’s not used as drinking water source though. Each year at least 40m litres of untreated sewage flows into the Thames in London, as the Victoria sewers are at capacity. There is currently an ongoing project to upgrade them which should be launched in 2022: http://www.tideway.london/ http://www.tideway.london/ Last year a water company was fined £20m for dumping 2 billion litres over the last few years further upstream: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/thames-water-hit-with-record-fine-for-huge-sewage-leaks https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/thames-w...
- vkou 8y ago
  > fortunately it’s not used as drinking water source though. If it were, I imagine the incentives to fix this problems would align differently then "Let's maybe get it fixed by 2022." The same could be said for Victoria, BC, which treats the ocean like a giant garbage dump, where it dumps its untreated sewage.
icebraining 8y ago
"The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay / They drink at lunch in San José." Seems like Tom Lehrer's Pollution is still relevant - just other countries.

emptybits 8y ago

In Canada our federal government also monitors wastewater for drug use and claims it's a practice from Europe. Though it doesn't carry a "war on drugs" tone. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/13-605-x/2018001/article/54922-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/13-605-x/2018001/article...

fgheorghe 8y ago
They do it in the uk too. But hey, when china does it, it is an issue.
ryanlol 8y ago
>claims it's a practice from Europe They've been doing this for a while in some European countries, yeah.

sn41 8y ago

Ironically open defecation now seems like a good privacy move :)

spullara 8y ago
No wonder it is so popular in San Francisco.
jdoliner 8y ago
This actually seems just barely within the realm of possibility of something a privacy bulwark like Richard Stallman could support
13of40 8y ago
I remember reading back in the Bush era that when he travelled abroad he used a porta-potty so the Russians couldn't analyze his poo.
waterhouse 8y ago
Seriously, though. Given all the things drug addicts often do if driven to them, is it wise to give them an incentive to, say, poop into a bag and eventually throw it into someone else's trash? I was wondering whether the technology was at the level where it could track it down to an individual. Struck me as implausible, but then the article says "policing" and that it was successfully used to "help track down" a manufacturer, but further thought shows that "help track down" might just mean "it helped narrow it down to a neighborhood" or something. I'm sure they wouldn't install in every apartment things that take samples at every different tenant's toilets. But they might take very broad samples, and then, when they find positive results in one area, they could add more sampling to its sub-areas, and narrow it down progressively, and eventually say "We now have cause to search the rooms of everyone in this apartment building for drugs".

King-Aaron 8y ago

Report from Australia about monitoring this kind of thing: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/sewage-tests-reveal-wa-drug-problem/7677296 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/sewage-tests-reveal-wa... "West Australians are using about two tonnes of methamphetamine each year with a street value of $2 billion, wastewater tests have revealed."

madrox 8y ago

I'm curious if this kind of thing would be prohibited in the US on fourth amendment grounds or not, or would be considered probable cause for a warrant.

pdkl95 8y ago
Kyllo v United States created a bright line test: new technology used to view "details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion"[1] count as a "search" if and only if the technology is not "in general public use"[2]. Since the general public does not generally use technologies for detecting trace amounts of specific chemicals, this should require a warrant. Current technologies that are heading towards losing 4th Amendment protection might be IR thermal cameras and trigger-word based audio recording (Alexa et al). The general public is increasingly using both of these technologies. When someone convinces a judge the "general public use" threshold has been crossed, the technology in general (not just a specific product) can be used without a warrant. [1] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html [2] Ibid.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nradov 8y ago
  There's no physical intrusion or accessing anything on private property with this technology. It's more like law enforcement sifting through a suspect's garbage after he puts it out at the curb, which can be done without a warrant.
  - vageli 8y ago
    This is not true in every state in the US.
- ataturk 8y ago

mr_spothawk 8y ago

flush twice & piss out the window

codeisawesome 8y ago

Someone commented about the privacy concerns of monitoring sewage for drugs in the US, and were downvoted heavily. No theory is truly tin-foil in our world it’s beginning to seem.

throwvondannen 8y ago
I remember this comment. I think there were objections about the feasibility and precision of these methods, when in reality those concerns just don't matter at all. Raided the wrong house/neighborhood? I doubt the victim could do anything tangible about it. Even better, this is another tool in the box of vague reasons to search a place that can be just made up.

praptak 8y ago

How practical would be to treat your urine so that the metabolites become undetectable?

krageon 8y ago
The most practical way to prevent detection (if you're that worried) is to do your business in toilets that are in some way public. Your school, your job, the train station (if it has regularly cleaned toilets), etc.

jpatokal 8y ago

The title implies they're looking for drug users, but the article talks more about drug manufacturing? The city mentioned, Zhongshan, is infamous for meth labs. http://www.thatsmags.com/guangzhou/post/19596/police-seize-66kg-of-crystal-meth-1-6-mill-in-guangdong-drug-raid http://www.thatsmags.com/guangzhou/post/19596/police-seize-6...

aaron695 8y ago

Old news for Australia - > After sewerage testing conducted last year identified skyrocketing rates of methamphetamine use in Kalgoorlie, police launched Operation Horta which saw more than $1 million of ice seized in the first few months of 2017. It has a NATIONAL WASTE WATER DRUG MONITORING PROGRAM > Use of new, sophisticated geospatial analysis methods incorporating water treatment catchment maps and 2016 Australian Census mesh blocks gives more accurate and precise consumption estimates. Testing for methylamphetamine amphetamine cocaine 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) JWH-018 JWH-073 mephedrone methylone oxycodone fentanyl tobacco alcohol https://www.acic.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1491/f/national_wastewater_drug_monitoring_program_report_1_0.pdf https://www.acic.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1491/f/national_was...

rubenbe 8y ago

This method is used to determine the "coke capital". In 2016 the city of Antwerp in Belgium took the first place from London. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38328107/london-is-no-longer-europes-cocaine-capital-with-antwerp-taking-over http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38328107/london-is-no-...

merinowool 8y ago

If someone had invented inexpensive drug monitor that could be installed in a waste pipe outlet, then they could make billions.

ataturk 8y ago
Maybe Elizabeth Holmes could head up the project.