WeChat‐as‐a‐Police Service

ABSTRACT WeChat exemplifies a unique entanglement of private and public data infrastructures. As China's “super app,” WeChat (微信) integrates seamlessly into daily life, enabling communication, shopping, utility payments, and access to government services. Prior research has thoroughly explored how WeChat has supported the information censorship regime in China. However, WeChat's impact on public security capabilities and services has not been previously examined. To address this gap, this article traces how Tencent (腾讯)—the company behind WeChat and one of the biggest communications companies in China—began working with public security agencies in China to develop public security WeChat and even supply WeChat‐supported policing services. This article draws on a multi‐modal data set of government procurement records ( n = 53), supplemented with digitally archived news articles. Integrated into profitable surveillance assemblages, public security WeChat and WeChat policing have evolved into a plug‐and‐play components of digital public‐private infrastructures. The analysis shows how WeChat went from supporting the Party‐state's information control efforts to becoming an integrated module of China's public security technologies.