When travelling to China for the Olympics this summer, leave any expectation of privacy at the border. Instead, prepare for possible eavesdropping and surveillance -- from listening devices in hotel rooms to bugged laptops and personal digital assistants to informers posing as friendly strangers.

Those who laugh at the seeming paranoia would be wise to remember that the U.S. recently accused Chinese authorities of allegedly copying data from the laptop of a visiting trade official last year and attempting to hack into the Commerce Department. The Chinese denied the allegations.

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The U.S. Department of State advises tourists not to expect privacy in public or private locations, particularly in hotels, but a spokesman declined to comment further.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., was almost as tight-lipped. He declined to address specific allegations of spying on foreigners at the Olympics.

"No special security measures will be arranged beyond universally adopted international practice at public venues, hotels and offices in China," he says.

"Privacy in China will be guaranteed according to the law."

But security experts say that Chinese law has few protections for individual privacy and that a preexisting network of surveillance tools may be used to closely track visitors from around the world, including business leaders and government officials.

Keeping close watch

Among other tactics, authorities are expected to watch Beijing streets remotely with an estimated 265,000 closed-circuit television cameras, deploy an estimated 100,000 informants to report potentially illegal activity, and heighten the monitoring of electronic and Internet communication. Olympics tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies will be embedded with a microchip containing passport information, a photograph, addresses and telephone numbers.

Though the Chinese government has watched its citizens for decades in an effort to maintain social order and silence dissidents, foreigners traveling to China for the Olympics may be of special interest if they express curiosity about sensitive topics like Tibet or Christianity--or if they have access to data and information that would increase economic or technological competitiveness. There are ways to safeguard your privacy, but they require a degree of advanced planning and, most important, the assumption that nothing is private.

It may be hard to adopt this mentality, especially since China can often seem like a free society on the surface, but Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong-Kong based China researcher for the Human Rights Watch, warns of the contradictions.

"Here's the thing that is hard to reconcile," he says, "China is not a police state in the style of the Soviet Union. This is a modern, vibrant, seemingly open society, and the police is all-powerful, and (the police force) has been modernized and strengthened by the use of modern technology."

No safeguards

There is no escaping the gaze of the police while walking the streets of Beijing, or even in Olympic venues, where 2,000 closed-circuit television cameras have been installed. But experts like Bequelin are less concerned about cameras used to deter crime, as they are in New York and London. Instead, he is wary of the fact that there are no laws to protect those who appear in the recorded video images.

"In China you don't have any safeguards or privacy laws," he says. "The utilization of these images is open-ended." Authorities, for instance, can retrace a person's steps to see every interaction and meeting. This can have worrisome implications for foreign visitors, for whom there is no discrete business meeting.

There are also consequences for locals. Says Bequelin: "The idea is to build a membrane between foreigners and Chinese people--in particular disgruntled Chinese citizens." The government is working hard to show the world a harmonious society, and authorities will be evaluating the interactions of foreigners and residents. By engaging or questioning a local too aggressively, tourists may subject him or her to scrutiny and monitoring.

Though intrusive, cameras are the least of a tourist's concerns. Bruce McIndoe, president of the security consulting company iJet, routinely warns his corporate clients about threats to their electronic security.

"What business people need to be aware of," he says, "is that the Chinese are very clear about who is coming into the country. You could be a senior level executive or a scientist and they will target you for surveillance."

McIndoe says the tracking usually begins with the temporary confiscation of a laptop, cellphone or PDA at customs. If this happens, consider it a "virtual guarantee" that its contents will copied, including everything from sensitive call lists to clues on how to infiltrate a network back home. Calls and text messages can also be remotely monitored, particularly if a key word like Tibet or Falun Gong has triggered the surveillance system.

Scan for bugs

Unfortunately, cellphones or PDAs purchased outside of China are not immune to eavesdropping. Once a call or text goes through the country's cellphone towers, it may be picked up by authorities. McIndoe's advice is to leave these devices at home or wipe them clean of information before arriving. In some cases, employers keep sanitized loaner laptops on hand for this purpose. Either way, devices should be professionally scanned for bugs if they return to the U.S.

Though it may seem safer, emailing from an Internet cafe is the worst alternative. These are aggressively monitored by authorities interested in browsing and e-mailing activities. McIndoe warns that log-in usernames and passwords are easily captured and that accessing a virtual private network from a cafe or any wi-fi hotspot can expose the system to malicious software. Exercise caution about accessing email accounts and be sure to change logins upon returning home.

Bequelin says that Beijing's biggest surveillance system is the neighbourhood committee. He estimates that about 100,000 of its Communist Party members have been mobilized to act as informants during the games. They are interested in finding out whom foreigners know in China and whether they have an ulterior motive, such as converting people to Christianity or participating in a demonstration about Tibet. Tourists should be receptive to strangers who approach them, but also be skeptical of their intentions.

Despite the warnings, Bequelin says that tourists should express their observations gently.

"People shouldn't feel that they have no right to speak," he says. "This is a good opportunity for the Chinese government to hear what people living in a free country think."