The police at the train station took a whole bunch of photos of my passport, at the very first security check.
He said it's national policy, now.

When I protested he got quite upset, and his lower rank comrade shouted "F*ck" at me.

Policy seemed heavier staffed this last week.

Do you guys know what this is about?

yeah this happened to me a couple of years ago on the train to Hekou.

I suspect it's to do with Uighurs. I believe that some (or possibly all) of them had to turn in their passports. Authorities are concerned about them posing as foreigners using stolen or fake foreign passports.

I know there was a big meeting last week in Beijing but it's already over for quite a bit.

It seemed really unprofessional, no software like the traffic cops have for all sorts of ID's including passports. The guy just used his personal cellphone and took ca. 10 photos.

Seemed very odd and reactionary.

My wife mentioned something new about travel restrictions introduced last week. I think she said you need to show ID and passports to even buy

long distance bus tickets.

Usually people are super zealous with new policy, until a month or so has gone by.

Screw em, yr average Uighur is as good as anybody else.

I just returned from Beijing. I was there during the meeting and there was an hour long security check line just to get into Tian An Men Square. We were told aside from the meeting, the security check into Tian An Men has been going on for over a year now and is a daily ritual. I saw at least 4 security check points to get in but I am sure there were more.

As for purchasing tickets, I travel to Dali often and never needed to use my passport but this has changed as of March 2017. Now all ticket purchases require ID/Passport.

I've traveled from Chengdu to Chongqing several time in the past 18 months and had to use my passport every time to get the ticket.

What really annoyed me was the fact that Chinese people could go to a local ticket office but I could only get mine at the train station.

Showing my passport to get my ticket or gain entrance, I am ok with. But them taking a load of photos to do who knows what, I am not ok with.

I don't trust Chinese police very much.

I can't see any use of taking photos. He didn't even check the ID info, my passport picture, or if the passport was real. He had no reference points, I could have still be the holder of another man's passport.

It's very unsettling.

The big meeting in Beijing is the so-called Two Sessions and it's still ongoing. It will finish in a few days time. It's the annual gathering of China's parliamentary-style bodies - the NPC and the CPPCC and it lasts about a fortnight. Security is always tight during this period and probably accounts for stricter checks at stations etc.

The requirement to show your ID when buying a train ticket was introduced a while back to combat ticket touts who were buying up all the tickets. It applies to Chinese and non-Chinese alike. It seems to have been quite effective in closing down the touts.

I always buy my train tickets from local ticket offices. There is one just off 1-2-1 street on the other side of the road from Wenhua Xiang. The queues at the station are horrible. I have never had a problem buying a ticket at a local office.

use the online system www.12306.cn. if you are not fluent in chinese, get a chinese friend to help to register then verify your id at the station office. once it is done, you could purchase tickets online and collect your ticket at the station.
i usually only have to show my passport at the pre-checkin gate before security check. never had my passport photographed even as recent as three days earlier on a train trip from shenzhen to guilin. will see what happen when travelling back to kunming from guilin in about a week.