Health Code

This article has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. (April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Health Code (Chinese name: 健康码) is an application used during COVID-19^[1] in mainland China. It is used as an e-passport that reports the real-time health condition. An applicant provides information such as travel history, residence, and medical records. The application will then generate a QR code that identifies the individual's risk level as red, yellow, or green.^[2] As of April 2020, over 200 cities and 20 provinces employed health code supported by Alipay.

History[]

On February 7, 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak was reignited when the winter break was over. Zhou Jiangyong, a government officer in Hangzhou, suggested the issuance of Health Code.^[3] On February 9, Shenzhen was the first city to promote Health Code.

On February 11, Alibaba cooperated with Hangzhou city government with devising the application. As of February 15, the coverage enlarged to Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, and other cities in the province.^[4]

On May 22, the Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission held a special meeting to promote the normalized use of health codes. It was formulated in the originally collected health codes to integrate electronic medical records, health checkups, and lifestyle management data to compare users’ health indicators with the health code colors to build a personal health index ranking.^[5]

Procedure[]

Application materials and collection[]

Individuals can choose Alipay, WeChat, provincial government service clients or mini programs to declare personal data and receive health codes. Whether they are mainland residents, Hong Kong and Macao residents, Taiwan residents and foreigners, they can complete real-name authentication.^[6] Apply for the epidemic prevention health code in Alipay and WeChat, and the data will be connected to the national government platform. After entering the prefecture-level option, the individual will be required to authorize the national government platform to obtain the individual's name, ID number, mobile phone number, and location information. After filling in personal information, health status, travel history, place of residence, and contact with suspected or confirmed pneumonia patients, the program will automatically generate a QR code. In order to facilitate the application of foreigners, some local governments have also introduced the English version of the health code.^[7]

Considering that some elderly and children cannot apply for a health code without a smart phone, some places have launched a service to apply for a health code on an agency. According to the local situation, the agent can use the citizen card (a variation of the social security card), printed paper, etc. to verify the code in the relevant scenes, or be presented by the peers. For areas where there is no provision for collection, if special persons need to enter a specific place, they can present an ID card, a paper health certificate, etc. instead of a health code. In addition, in response to the situation that students cannot bring their mobile phones into the school, some areas have developed cards such as "smart education cards". When students enter the school, they can read the card on the machine to determine the health code status.^[8]

Data process and code color[]

Health codes in various parts of mainland China are led by local governments, and their data comes from the information declared by local big data centers and users themselves, and they are run by algorithms and rules formulated by the government.^[9]

The data of personal health code mainly comes from big data; coupled with the function of roaming and positioning across provinces and cities, it can clearly confirm the personal track within 14 days. Personal data includes traffic data, operator data, financial institution payment data, etc., to achieve accurate and traceable epidemic prevention and control, so the health code is divided into three-color dynamic management of "green code, yellow code, and red code" . However, due to differences in the epidemic situation and prevention and control requirements in various regions, the meanings of the three colors are also different. From a national perspective, green generally means that the person has no abnormalities, is in a healthy state, and can pass normally. Yellow and red indicate that the person is a close contact who needs isolation or medical observation, or is a person from a key country or region of the epidemic and who has been in the corresponding health code for less than 14 days, or a confirmed case of new coronary pneumonia who has not recovered, for which a suspected case has not been ruled out. Patients, patients with fever, and those with asymptomatic infections are not allowed to pass normally. However, some cities require people who have been given red and yellow codes to complete the health check-in continuously before they can be converted to green codes.^[10][11]

International Version[]

Starting April 2020, Civil Aviation Administration of China and General Administration of Customs required all Chinese citizens and eligible alien visitors taking flights to China to fill out questionnaires (A-1) of the Health Code International Version to obtain a green code to board day by day starting from 14 days before departure and required that it be verified by airline's ground staffs for check-in and boarding.^[12] The airline will allow passengers to board based on the status of the Code and other factors.^[13] In the event of a typo or error, passengers needed to contact the Global Consular Protection and Service Emergency Hotline of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China for background processing.^[14]

In July 2020, the Chinese government promulgated the Announcement on the Boarding of Passengers on Flights to China with a Negative Test Certification for the Novel Coronavirus Test, which requires passengers to undergo nucleic acid testing (PCR) to apply for a green Health Code before taking the flight to China. The Health Code International Version added a "PCR code" entry (B-1) on July 27. Passengers will obtain a green health code with the "HS" (PCR testing in Pinyin) mark after uploading a negative PCR COVID test certificate and being reviewed by the embassy or consulate of the country of departure.^[15][16]

At the end of October, requirements for obtaining a green health code were modified, a negative Antibody test (IgM) was added in addition to the existing PCR test, and such COVID tests should be conducted only in the city where the direct-flight to China depart.^[17][18] In January 2021, some Chinese embassies and consulates abroad issued a notice reiterating that international travel to China should meet the principle of "non-essential, non-urgent, no travel", and announced that embassies and consulates will consider the necessity of travel when deciding whether to issue a green code: passengers who "casually visits relatives and friends" may not be able to get the green code for boarding even if they have a negative test report. ^[19][20]

Problem and conflict[]

Surveillance and invasion of privacy[]

The application can extract a variety of personal data collected by the government, with in-depth and extensive large-scale surveillance. The system used is the same as the official system for tracking "key personnel" (referring to several broad groups of people that the authorities believe are problematic, including Turkic Muslims and drug users), but the difference is that the modification is aimed at people who have close contacts with the virus.^[21]

After the launch of the "Health Code", a reporter from the "New York Times" analyzed the "Health Code" code and found that the system can not only determine whether someone is at risk of infection in real time, but also share user information with public security agencies to monitor their location and health. In this situation, the user’s personal information, location and identification code will be sent to the server, which may exist for a long time after the epidemic is over, and then help the government to monitor. Wang Songlian, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in China, believes that the "health code" is "one of the milestones in the history of China's large-scale surveillance". There are also people who believe that personal medical privacy may be improperly abused. Due to the disputes arising from this issue, regional discordant video transmissions and the lack of supporting remedial measures for system failures have also led to a lot of public grievances and disputes. For example, a Hubei native who returned to work in Shanghai was given a red code, and some people's health codes suddenly changed color in front of the station.^[22] Shangguan News, a subsidiary of Jiefang Daily, claimed that "the red code for the destination code of Wuhan people leaving the province is the default" is not true. After an individual is assigned a category (color), there is almost no way for review or appeal . In July 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China issued a document stating that “using the epidemic to use big data technology to carry out large-scale surveillance, infringing on citizens’ privacy rights” is a fallacy.^[23]

The Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission launched a plan on May 22, intending to integrate the original health code with more personal health information, and will build an overall health scoring system for comparison and ranking with different citizens, communities and companies. Once the plan was reported, it caused an uproar on social media. A large number of netizens questioned that the collection of data violated personal privacy and may also lead to discrimination . Some critics pointed out that this was a blind collusion between business and administration, and that it would be a bad example to propose an upgrade of the health code in a model city of e-government .^[24]

At the end of December 2020, "Beijing Healthbao" (Beijing version of Health Code) was exposed to a personal information leakage incident. Its photos, ID card numbers and related nucleic acid test information were put on the Internet for sale, including 7 people from the 3 yuan package "Times Youth League" Health treasure photos, 2 yuan to pack more than 70 artist health treasure photos, and 1 yuan to sell more than 1,000 artist ID numbers and so on. For the group that first appeared in the industry of celebrity “sales”, the relevant trading transactions only need to register their personal information in the “Beijing Healthbao” applet, and go through the “Inquiry of Other People's Nucleic Acid Test Results” in the “Health Service Appointment Inquiry”. Enter the celebrity’s name and ID number, and you can get the health treasure photos of the celebrity without recognizing the face, and even get the person’s test result, test agency, and test time. Later, the media verified that some of the celebrities' information was true. And a publicist of Beijing Zhongguancun Science City Urban Brain Company, which is responsible for the development of Beijing Healthbao, said that the company is following up on the incident and relevant information will be announced in time.^[25]

System omissions and failures[]

At the beginning of the release of the health code, there were multiple system omissions, including the inability to modify personal information, and automatically log in to 37 degrees of body temperature. In addition, the communication big data itinerary card used to assist the use of the health code and confirm the itinerary within 14 days also has the problem of overlapping signals near the provincial border, so that it shows that you have visited a neighboring province without leaving the province. According to VOA reports, Taiwan’s artificial intelligence, machine deep learning expert, and associate professor of electrical engineering at National Tsinghua University, Li Qi, believes that the health code is used in special situations and involves sensitive issues such as the spread of the epidemic or groups at high risk of infection. If AI technology is added in the data process, and the decision makers set indicators and integrate data training, and then mark the users layer by layer, it can not only avoid privacy concerns, accurately analyze and judge the situation of the people, and it can also be better for experts to prevent epidemics.^[2]

On the morning of May 6, 2020 (the first working day after the May 1st Labor Day holiday), a large-scale failure of the Hangzhou Health Code occurred. Subsequently, the Hangzhou Health Code Work Class stated that this was caused by an unstable interface. In addition, there are similar failures in Beijing, Jiangsu and other places, which are also caused by interface problems.^[26]

References[]