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China runs the largest digital surveillance apparatus on earth.

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Many in China hardly notice the country’s millions of cameras. But for the tens of thousands under watch, it’s an invisible digital cage, tracking and restricting their movement.

Among them are the Yang family, living in rural eastern Jiangsu province. Caught in a land dispute, they’ve been trying to seek relief from local officials by appealing to China’s central government in Beijing. But this surveillance apparatus based on American technology monitors and predicts their every move, flagging them for detention every time they try to go to the Chinese capital.

Yang Guoliang lives alone, a virtual prisoner in his own house. His wife and younger daughter were arrested last year and now face trial for disrupting the work of the Chinese state — a crime carrying a sentence of up to a decade in prison.

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