The Chinese Communist Party has been stepping up its crackdown on internet users who circumvent the Great Firewall, extending its control measures from the main network backbone to the corporate and individual endpoints. Recently, the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration disclosed a patent related to identifying whether a computer is using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) technology. The release of this information has raised concerns from the public about the further expansion of technical surveillance.
The patent was filed by Fujian Zixun Information Technology Co., Ltd. in October 2025 and subsequently entered the substantive examination stage. In March 2026, as the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration entered the statutory public announcement process, the content of the patent with public number CN121691088A was first disclosed to the public. The tech community then spread the related information, drawing attention to this identification solution targeting endpoint devices.
Wang Xueqin (pseudonym), a researcher at a tech company in Shenzhen, told our reporter that he has been closely monitoring these developments: “Fujian Zixun has its headquarters in Shenzhen. The core issue of this patent lies in the potential compression of users’ channels to access external information through VPN if the relevant detection tools are forcibly deployed in corporate environments or public devices.”
Public records show that the Shenzhen branch of Fujian Zixun Information Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2020, with Liu Zhihai as the head. The company adopts a dual-headquarters layout of “Fuzhou + Shenzhen,” with approximately 400 employees specializing in cross-border e-commerce tool development, and its core product “Purple Bird Browser” has a high usage rate in the industry. Its parent company is a national high-tech enterprise and has been listed in Fujian Province’s “Future Unicorns” list.
What has caught the attention of many internet users and self-media is that a company primarily focused on cross-border business tools is now involved in VPN identification technology. Wang Xueqin pointed out that the system scans the underlying routing table and verifies the correspondence between physical network cards and virtual network cards, “As long as the characteristics of the virtual network card are identified, the system will determine that the user is using a VPN.”
Mr. Li, an engineer in Jiangsu engaged in information security for many years, expressed during the interview that such identification logic may broaden the scope of misjudgment: “At the technical level, many legitimate development tools also generate virtual network cards. This blanket identification approach could categorize normal development behaviors into monitoring scope. When the identification results are directly linked to administrative penalties or workplace actions, technology could be used to restrict behaviors.”
The exposure of this patent has sparked widespread discussions on social media platforms. Many netizens question the boundaries of application of such technology: “In the future, will everything installed on a computer be scanned, what about privacy?” Some developers also commented: “Virtual network cards are already a part of normal development environments, and now with blanket identification, even law-abiding individuals are seen as violators.” Some netizens pointed out: “If such detection is forcibly deployed by companies, it means turning personal devices into monitoring terminals.” Others expressed strong dissatisfaction, leaving comments like “destroying future generations” and “abetting tyranny.”
Fujian scholar Mr. Kong revealed to our reporter that since its establishment in 2015, Zixun Technology has been included in the Chinese Communist Party’s “civil-military integration” and related “digital stability” industry chain. Mr. Kong stated, “Technology itself is neither good nor bad, but when it is incorporated into the governance logic of the CCP, it transforms into a part of institutionalized surveillance. This means that businesses are no longer just economic entities but become front-end assistants in monitoring and supervising employees.”
In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party’s control methods in cyberspace have been evolving, from early filtering measures targeting network links to gradually extending to endpoint devices. From the promotion of filtering software to the emergence of enterprise-level identification technology, the subjects of control are shifting from network interception to individual endpoints themselves.
Mr. Kong mentioned that when endpoint devices are integrated into a unified identification system, individuals’ access to information and the space for using the internet will be further restricted. Under this trend, the boundaries of ordinary users in digital usage are undergoing changes.