[pimmen]

China does want to gather data, it has deployed tons of sensors and cameras to monitor its population's habits on the street. With the personal credit score implemented it can monitor its population even more thoroughly. How much data it gathers on its population thanks to the Great Firewall we can only speculate.

Granted, population data is one thing since you can incentivize people to share it. Data gathering that requires investment of money into sensors and time for careful placement of them is a completely different thing entirely