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Talk about mission creep: #China& #39;s covid health tracking systems are close to becoming permanent. Chinese city wants to use green, yellow, red QR codes in scheme to single out unhealthy people. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-plan-to-make-permanent-health-tracking-on-smartphones-stirs-concern-11590422497">https://www.wsj.com/articles/...
Chinese city wants to collate health records, physical exam results, and even lifestyle habits such as smoking and drinking to give it resident a health score between 0-100, and different shades of yellow, red, green.
Your health score and color code changes daily. Alcoholics and smokers beware. Here’s how it works: if you walk 15,000 steps in a day, your health score rises by 5 PRD. Have plans to grab a post-work drink with colleagues? A 200 ml of Baijiu marks you down 1.5 pts. #surveillance
3/ there’s also the idea to use such scores to assess health levels of clusters of people: corporations, neighborhoods, apartment blocks, according to Hangzhou health authorities, after they announced the news in a meeting on Friday.
4/ To recap, these colored QR codes were introduced in Hangzhou in February to faciliate people& #39;s return to work. Authorities assessed your recent travel history and health condition to assign you a rating on whether you were allowed to move about or not. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-turns-to-health-rating-apps-to-control-movements-during-coronavirus-outbreak-11582046508?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=16">https://www.wsj.com/articles/...
5/ Since Saturday, there& #39;s growing criticism on Weibo, China& #39;s Twitter. Some described it as #BlackMirror". One widely retweeted post reads, "Once power is unleashed, it’s difficult to retract. Once we give up our rights under special circumstances, it’s hard to get them back."
6/ Here& #39;s an early look at how people might respond to too much data collection during a coronavirus: (mostly facial data tracked) @samschech @RolfeWinkler @FoxCahn @Fredomatikus A survey done by state-linked Chinese agencies: https://attachment.baai.ac.cn/share/aies/facial-recognition-and-public-health-en-2020-05-17.pdf">https://attachment.baai.ac.cn/share/aie...
There& #39;s been calls for China to put in some checks and balances on covid data collection and surveillance. Baidu& #39;s CEO Robin Li called for this at the ongoing Chinese parliament meetings. He& #39;s asked for authorities to set a plan to regulate and wind down such data collection.
China knows data protection is an issue: Li Zhanshu, a top Chinese legislator said Monday at the NPC meetings that China goal is to push ahead with a personal data protection law this year. According to Xinhua, a draft is already done.
