![]() You can scan a QR code when boarding a bus and pay after the ride, at half the cost of paying in cash, according to Beijing Youth Daily. The problem, she said, was that when a system of surveillance was well established, it was easy for the party-state to covertly extend the uses of that system.Ĭhina's National Health Commission has been contacted for comment.A passenger uses mobile payment on a bus in Qingdao, Shandong province, July 2, 2017.Ĭould you live a whole day without money? With a smart phone, it is easy for ordinary people to do so in Beijing, even when public transportation is involved. ![]() Ms Bernot said the system had made the state's data harvesting and analysis more obvious than ever and pushback from the populace could stop the health code system from going beyond its original purpose. However, Ms Bernot pointed out that people were outraged in early 2020 when a local government in China's Hangzhou city told its residents they were planning to make a version of the health code permanent. "There is a definite possibility that the health code might be integrated into broader structures of governance," she said. In June, customers of a rural bank in China's Henan province found their COVID-19 QR code unexpectedly turned red as they were on their way to the bank's headquarters to petition and demand their accounts be unfrozen.Īusma Bernot, a PhD candidate at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, said the health code system was "an excellent means of keeping tabs on the population". However, Deakin University media researcher Yang Fan said that despite claims of good intentions, the plan would not make accessing proper health care easier for the elderly or people lacking digital literacy. "This is a very meaningful thing, to open and merge medical databases, and achieve interconnection and sharing of 1.4 billion people's health information," she said. Peking University health expert Li Ling told Chinese state media The Paper the digital health code was intended to improve medical services and people's lives. " are not the same thing," they said.Īccording to Caixin, the new health codes would be created based on residents' identification numbers. While details about Beijing's plans are limited, according to the announcement: "Each resident will have a dynamically managed digital health record and a full-featured electronic health code."Ī source "close to the NHC" told Chinese news website Caixin the new electronic health code would be different to the digital QR codes that track people's COVID test records and movements. ![]() How does China's COVID-19 health code system work? However, there have been instances where the system appears to have been abused to limit people's movement for non-health-related reasons.Īnd experts worry that Beijing will use an expanded health code system to even more closely surveil and control the populace. The announcement triggered a surge of interest on Chinese social media with a related hashtag about living with digital health codes post-COVID quickly receiving more than 38 million views on China's version of Twitter, Weibo.ĬOVID-19 health codes have been a core element of China's hardline health strategy during the pandemic.įor the past two years, a green health code has been required for entry to almost every public place in urban China - from supermarkets to restaurants, public transport and even parks - and also for travel between localities. It's part of a five-year National Health Informatisation Plan to "digitise national health information" by 2025. Beijing's plans to develop an integrated online health platform featuring the digital health records of every resident has sparked concerns about intensified state surveillance.Ĭhina's National Health Commission announced last week that each resident would be given a "fully functional digital health code".
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