China's local governments are ramping up surveillance efforts with new data collection campaigns to better trace residents' moves in public areas, seeking to curb the coronavirus outbreak but heightening privacy concerns.
Some regions are also instructing residents to use newly launched features by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd's WeChat apps. Users fill in a questionnaire to obtain a obtain colour-based QR code which then acts as guidance at checkpoints as to whether the person should be quarantined or let through.
"Of course governments have the responsibility to protect public health and safety but these measures have to balance other rights as well, including privacy rights," said Maya Wang, China senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Big data has shown you to be a close contact of an infected person," said the officials in the video, which Reuters was unable to verify. An employee at the hotel named in the video told Reuters it was not currently open to the public. Other people who say they have been quarantined using big data have questioned its accuracy.
"My residential committee and the police station understand the situation but can not help me," he said.It was unclear whether all the data collected goes to a central depository or was analysed on a national level, as local authorities often used their own systems made by different companies. Alipay deferred questions to various government departments who provide and operate the services, saying it does not have access to the related data.
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