China: Fighting COVID-19 With Automated Tyranny

“I thought the days when humans are ruled by machines and algorithms won’t happen for at least another 50 years. [But] this coronavirus epidemic has suddenly brought it on early,” a blogger on the popular Chinese forum Zhihu wrote. The blogger was complaining about Health Code, an app that local authorities around China rely on to make decisions about quarantining individuals amid the COVID-19 outbreak.  

The Chinese authorities are notorious for using technology for surveillance, unconstrained by privacy legislation, a free press, robust civil society, or an independent legal system. In Xinjiang, northwestern China, police over the last few years have collected residents’ biometrics without their consent. This and other data has been used to evaluate the level of political loyalty of the region’s 12 million Turkic Muslim minority residents and to determine how much freedom of movement they will be allowed.

How does Health Code work? People first fill in their personal information, including their ID number, where they live, whether they have been with people carrying the virus, and their symptoms. The app then churns out one of three colors: green means they can go anywhere, yellow and red mean seven and 14 days of quarantine, respectively. The app also surreptitiously collects – and shares with the police – people’s location data.

The app’s color determination has a wide-ranging impact on the lives of its 700 million users, as local authorities throughout China require people to show their app when they hail a ride, go to supermarkets, or enter and exit residential areas and the subway. Their ability to move around, earn a living, and even obtain necessities and medical care are dependent on the app’s tri-color code. The access control systems of some residential areas even use facial recognition technology, allowing only those with green code to enter, indicating that these systems are linked.

Exactly how companies designed the app and the criteria they use to categorize people remain unclear. The Zhejiang provincial government has promulgated a set of standards for the Health Code app, outlining broad and ambiguous criteria for categorization. “Having been to affected areas recently” and “belonging to groups relevant to the epidemic” are two of seven criteria that can turn a user’s code red. Other local governments are authorized to establish rules for carrying out these criteria in their districts. Without further insight into the inner workings of the app it is hard for people to make sense of the color they are assigned, or what circumstances might trigger a change in color.

There are also mounting concerns that Health Code metes out arbitrary decisions about individuals’ freedom of movement. “[My] green code suddenly turned into red in the middle of the day,” one netizen said. “We are healthy people without symptoms but quarantined at home for over a month, what’s going on?” Another said the Health Code conflicted with the decisions of local authorities: “Even the residential district [authorities] issued us a certificate showing we have fulfilled 14 days of home quarantine, [and yet I still] have a red code… I can’t buy vegetables, I haven’t eaten fruit for a long time… this diet is making me sick.”

Older people disproportionately feel the app’s impact on their human rights, particularly on their right to health care at a time they need it most: “A couple of older people came to the hospital today… [but] to take the public bus and to enter hospitals you need the Health Code, and to see the doctor you need to make an appointment [on your smartphone]. They don’t have smartphones, so they walked to the hospital. How do you expect them to have made an online appointment in advance?” one netizen wrote. The crisis lays bare the dangers of older people’s digital exclusion.

There seems to be very limited process of review or appeal for the category an individual is assigned. While there is a number to dial for help, that number is also automated and getting a real person on the phone is a challenge. Netizens say they are frustrated. “My wife has gotten a red code for no reason! There is nowhere to seek redress! She can’t go to work, neither can she come home!” one user ranted.

Official documents show that the app is drawing from a wide range of personal data the government collects, revealing the depth and breadth of such mass surveillance. The app makes use of the same government system used to track “focus personnel” – a term that generally refers to several broad social groups the authorities consider problematic, ranging from Turkic Muslims to drug users. But it has been refashioned to track down those who have close contact with people with the coronavirus.

Health Code also has access to the government’s vast databases, including its “personnel database” – which logs people’s relationships, birth control methods, and even their visits to internet cafes. The Health Code system knows, among other things, “how long, and how frequently, someone has been to areas with the virus outbreak” with “precision down to the specific town or subdistrict.”

The Chinese government has long sought ways to strengthen control over the population through surveillance technology, an intention that was amply clear by 2000, when it embarked on the ambitious “Golden Shield Project.” The project aimed to build a nationwide, intelligent digital surveillance network capable of identifying, locating, and providing personal records on individuals at the push of a button. High-profile international gatherings in China, such as the 2008 Olympics, have also spurred on the surveillance state, as the authorities have tried out new surveillance systems, providing opportunities for private surveillance companies to peddle their latest wares.

In this outbreak, Chinese surveillance companies have come out with multi-million-dollar systems to identify people wearing masks or to remotely spot fevers. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Health Code app’s combination of mass data collection and movement restrictions in the rest of China bear an eerie resemblance to those practiced in Xinjiang.

The coronavirus outbreak came just as there had been some growing unease against increased intrusions into privacy in China. Parents have questioned the use of “brain-reading” headbands to detect students’ concentration; a professor filed a legal challenge against a public park for using facial recognition; and the Beijing subway’s proposed use of facial recognition to automatically categorize people into differing levels of security checks also raised significant concern. While these challenges mostly skirt the center of the problem – the government’s broader use of surveillance – out of political sensitivity, they present crucial resistance to total surveillance.

There is no doubt that the Chinese government faces enormous challenges in containing the outbreak, and that it has a responsibility to ensure public health and safety. But fear of the virus, much like the fear of terrorism, has given the authorities a free hand to impose extraordinarily intrusive measures to address problems that were at least in part the products of governance failure in the first place. One wonders whether, if there were free speech and a free press in China and if whistleblowers like Dr. Li Wenliang had not been punished for ringing the alarm about an unknown virus back in December, maybe the outbreak would have been better contained.

Even during a viral outbreak, the state still has the responsibility to protect human rights. Privacy rights are not absolute, but any interference with privacy must be necessary and proportionate for a legitimate aim, and subject to a clear and public legal framework. Implementing an aggressive response that also respects rights is possible, starting with more targeted screening of individuals and monitoring of those exposed to infected individuals who can be isolated at home or in health facilities and provided appropriate support.

While some around the world seem to increasingly consider China’s draconian measures in a positive light now that the virus is spreading globally, better examples of success in both preventing and controlling the pandemic can be found elsewhere. For example, in Hong Kong, concerted efforts at social distancing, handwashing, and mask-wearing are showing success. Even in South Korea, where thousands have been infected, the government’s ramped-up testing for COVID-19 is showing promise.

Open communication from officials is also important to increase trust in government and in effective responses. In these more open societies, we have also seen civil society organize to address policy gaps, for example by dispensing sanitary products to those in need. New technologies can be used to empower – not abuse – people’s right to health in times of crisis. In Taiwan, Digital Minister Audrey Tang responded to initiatives from the community, creating a real-time and open national map of face mask supplies, which has calmed panic.

Undoubtedly, when the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, there will be many discussions about the “lessons learned.” It would be a mistake to conclude that China’s extreme and intrusive measures were a success while ignoring its numerous failures. Chinese authorities silenced whistleblowers and covered up the scope of the threat – even now we cannot know for sure whether those authorities’ information about the virus is accurate. And we may never know how many people with chronic diseases were or are unable to get access to medicines. Instead, we should be learning from places that responded faster, respected rights, and prioritized building responsive public health systems that are able to quickly adapt and deliver the needs of communities to better protect us in the next outbreak.