China is taking drastic measures to ensure that people in quarantine, don’t leave their home.

Authorities install security cameras outside people’s front doors – and in some cases inside people’s apartments, according to multiple sources that CNN has spoken to.

Ian Lahiffe, a 34-year-old Irishman in Beijing, says a camera was installed outside the family’s front door the morning after he returned from a trip to southern China, to begin a two-week quarantine period.

“(Having a camera outside your door is) an incredible erosion of privacy,” said Lahiffe. “It just seems to be a massive data grab. And I don’t know how much of it is actually legal,” he told CNN.

He says he had not been warned about the camera being installed by the authorities.

Charming visit by the Police. While asking us to fill out forms re quarantine, they casually mounted this camera to watch our door, while asking for our Wifi. I politely refused and now I am not sure if it works or not! Police state! pic.twitter.com/c1Jk88GZbW — Ian Lahiffe (@lahiffei) April 15, 2020

Another source, who appears under the pseudonym William Zhou, tells CNN that a camera was installed inside his apartment in the city of Changzhou in February – the day after he had returned from a trip to Anhui province.

William Zhou reports that a police officer and a man from the municipality showed up at his address and installed the surveillance camera on a wall in the apartment. Zhou was furious and asked why the camera could not be placed outside the apartment. He was told it was to avoid vandalism on the camera.

Several users on the Chinese social media Weibo, have shared pictures of cameras that have been installed outside their homes.

Most seem to accept the surveillance, but it is unknown how much criticism of the action the Chinese authorities allow on the Internet.

Jason Lau, a security expert and professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the Chinese had become used to the massive surveillance long before the corona pandemic erupted.

“In China, people probably already assume that the government has access to a lot of their data anyway. If they think the measures are going to keep them safe, keep the community safe and are in the best interest of the public, they may not worry too much about it,” he told CNN.

In early April, more than 100 human rights organizations sent a joint press release asking governments around the world to respect human rights and privacy when using digital surveillance, and not to use the pandemic to expand the already large surveillance system that exists in many parts of the world.