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China Privacy Technology

As Chinese Authorities Expand Use of Health Tracking Apps, Privacy Concerns Grow (reuters.com) 55

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
China's health tracking QR codes, which have played a key part in the country's successful containment of the coronavirus, now look set to play a much broader role in daily life as local authorities dream up new uses for the technology. From a report: Embedded in the popular WeChat and Alipay smartphone apps, the codes use self-reported and automatically collected travel and medical data to give people a red, yellow or green rating indicating the likelihood of having the virus. To walk around freely, people in China must have a green rating and since February they have been asked to present their health QR codes to gain entry into restaurants, parks and other venues. The codes had so far met with little public resistance, seen as a necessary tool to get the economy back up on its feet again. Or that was the case until the eastern city of Hangzhou proposed on Friday permanently assigning each of its residents a coloured health badge and giving them a score from 0-100 based on their medical records and lifestyle habits.
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As Chinese Authorities Expand Use of Health Tracking Apps, Privacy Concerns Grow More

As Chinese Authorities Expand Use of Health Tracking Apps, Privacy Concerns Grow

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  • So you mean when people like me said that countries (China is often specifically mentioned) would use tracking apps/data to crack their citizens/subjects for evermore, and were called paranoid delusional, w were actually right? Nooooo, it can't be! lol

    Seriously people. Name a single authoritarian government, anywhere in the world, that when handed some kind of power, decided not to keep it?

    Heck, the US isn't quite authoritarian (yet), and that statement still usually holds true here!

    This was entirely for

    • Hold up...

      "Name a single authoritarian government, anywhere in the world, that when handed some kind of power, decided not to keep it?"

      Can you name any "government" that is not authoritarian? All governments enforce rule of law by threat of violence. That is literally what they are. You break law, people with guns show up to fine you, arrest you, beat the shit out of you, or just flat out shoot you.

      We need to describe governments more along the lines of how aggressive they are with their "authoritarianis

      • Can you name any "government" that is not authoritarian?

        There's a dictionary definition for authoritarian government, and I think that's what he was referring to. I know where you're coming from and agree to most points.

    • ...just deleted Wechat.

  • Grow? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:53AM (#60105506)
    What is being described doesn't sound like a privacy concern, it sounds like a full on Orwellian nightmare.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Orwellian nightmare.

      When things go wrong, it's usually hushed up so that most don't hear the down-sides of Snoopland and authoritarian decisions. Most just think, "don't make waves and everything will be fine". That's generally mostly true. Being framed for political reasons is relatively rare, although a big shame when it does happen. And potentially dangerous such as the doctor who warned about the virus but was punished for rocking the boat. But the boat needed rocking.

      They are taught that any downsides

    • What is being described doesn't sound like a privacy concern, it sounds like a full on Orwellian nightmare.

      There's a difference?

      "Privacy concerns" are, and always have been, about avoiding Orwellian nightmares.

      This is a point privacy advocates make from time to time, only to be derided as paranoid conspiracy theorists - by the advocates of Orwellian surveillance states.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        "You have no privacy. Get over it." - Scott McNealy, 1998

        Twenty two years later I think his statement is still true.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I have kept many things from impacting my public life.

          Privacy is not a binary concept, and framing that way is ignorant if not deliberately misleading. Either Scotty is saying (1) you have utterly zero privacy (2) you will fail when seeking 100% perfect privacy

          Either will reveal the phrase as meaningless.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      it sounds like a full on Orwellian nightmare

      In many ways the real world is far more extreme than Orwell ever could imagine, his world is still a world with people under the surveillance of people like East Germany in the 1980s. True you had telescreens but only Party members had those and there's no indication they were anything but dumb recorders they could review. He never envisioned a world where smart devices, cameras and sensors would vastly outnumber people and feed into massive databases and computer models analyzing and risk scoring everyone.

  • Really? Finally concerned? (Score:3)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:07AM (#60105568) Journal

    We already know they monitor and edit your private communications (WeChat, etc). They built a social-score rating for every single person (meaning they track everything you do). Massive number of cameras to track individuals and cars. And now we're concerned that a Communist state, who controls the entire medical system, will use that information for its own needs? I mean, it's a HEALTH TRACKING APP, the whole POINT is to track you around.

    And people here in the US want to emulate that...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      We have the same problem here, except it's private companies doing the snooping & tracking instead of (just) the government. We usually only find out when a breach hits the news our we get a letter from lawyers telling us the company "had a little problem".

      • The difference between a Government and private industry is, private industry can't sentence you to prison like Government can [scmp.com]. It's one thing to have your private data shared; it's another to have it used to lock you away.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Sig: Why Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion from China: to avoid SOX for Chinese companies

          Graft and legalized bribery is common among both parties. Why focus on just the Bidens? The GOP court backed legalized bribery per "Citizens United", for example. Widen your sig if you really care. It's a problem bigger than political parties.

        • Incorrect, United States (acting on behalf of datto inc) v Austin Stienbart in AZ currently, Did federal time and was thrown in solitary confinement for a youtube video that pissed of a corporation. Currently under house arrest pending trial. All computers and guns confiscated, 1st and 2nd amendments stripped, and forbidden from accessing the internet. He hasn't even been to trial, or been indicted yet, and has already been incarcerated twice, including two trips to solitary (about a half week) as well as

  • Privacy, privacy, privacy (Score:3)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:23AM (#60105614) Homepage
    A question to fellow ./'ers: would you rather live in a nation where everyone is being tracked 24x7 and there are no STDs (or you perfectly know whether the person is clean or not), or where there's no tracking at all and STDs are very common, including the ones which could cause premature death, huge health issues, fetus development issues, birth complications and many other. This question has almost nothing to do with COVID-19 but implications are very similar.

    • Re:Privacy, privacy, privacy (Score:4, Funny)

      by BroccoliKing ( 6229350 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:26AM (#60105628)
      Not sure that the threat of STD's is really a concern for most /. users.

    • Option 3. Avoiding STD propagating behavior and skipping the Orwell.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Perhaps it should be a crime to have a known STD and not inform your partner, or at least a civil penalty. We don't need Big Brother in our pants to reduce the problem.

    • Without freedom you're already dead. Just a puppet for others to use and discard at their whim.

      Your question should have been, "would you prefer freedom and the responsibility that comes with it or slavery and punishment for disobedience?"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      Well, the second one, obviously. It's not like I accidentally have sex with people on the train to work. Unless a judge is asking, in which case it was completely accidental, you honour.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tokul ( 682258 )

      > would you rather live in a nation

      Once STD eliminated will those in power relinquish it and stop that app? Current covid situation shows that they don't. They will start tracking FLC aka freedom loving criminals disease. Here we are in third month of quarantine and idiot in charge is doing everything to keep his place on podium.

  • Seems we passed the point where they should have been concerned a long while ago. Not sure why this is the line.

    Also, testing something: Wumao () is asshoe!

  • This is a joke, right???

  • China and privacy used in the same sentence?

  • Is there even a word in Chinese for "privacy"?

    ...laura

  • When China didn't lock down, we accuse them of cover-up. When China locked down, we accuse them of stripping freedom. When China saw "high" death numbers, we ridiculed them as failed society. When China emerged with low death numbers, we stuck our heads in the sand.

    Before you praise South Korea's democratic way, their method is essentially the same as the Chinese one with the same concern [npr.org].

    Before you comment that there must be better way, you must consider that China is by far a lot densely [dreamstime.com] populated [wsj.net], like 1

    • Move to China, become a citizen then report back your findings to me a year later. Oh wait .. you won't be able to. My bad.

      • There are 1.4 billion citizens in China. ~400 million of them have moved to middle-class status. Millions of them move in and out of China every year. Thousands of them are flocking back into China now to avoid the COVID-19 in the US and UK.

        Go figure.

  • Well of course they will. They probably had this all ready to go just in case there was a pandemic so they could spring it on their citizens immediately.
    Hey Chinese Government: Why go to half-measures? Just fucking tattoo QR codes on the backs of everyone's necks and get it over with, you bastards. Or implant wireless GPS receivers in their chests, or something, you know you want to do it!
  • It's China for Pete's sake! There is no such thing as privacy. It's a communist government ... duh. I'm concerned when free societies start pulling this crap. I really feel sorry for Chinese citizens living in those conditions.
  • Never thought I'd say this, but this is probably the only time I think authoritarian works. Undoubtedly the tracking idea won't work in US because people would just not opt into it. On the contrary, in China, people believe this is an acceptable thing and willing to participate in the tracking. This is the only reason that the tracking purpose may work and help their society detect/isolate threats more quickly and therefore being able to suppress the outbreak more easily.

  • Chinese people living in a dictatorship are shocked when the government increases their monitoring.

  • played a key part in [China's] successful containment of the coronavirus

    ...pretty sure it got out.

  • With covid in China, the government implemented health tracking apps to track people. But in doing so, people had to give their private information such as location data which can be concerning as who knows who might use that data for something else? Yes, the government says that is to only track for the virus but from past cases, that can’t be for certain. For example, I read there was a case in China where a woman wearing pajamas in public had her photo taken by surveillance, shared onto the intern
  • Since data has become the new oil in recent times, it has become imperative for organisations to stay upto date with security practices and secure their user data. It is not only health tracking apps that need to secure the data but also the others. With this organisations are moving towards adopting identity and access management solutions to keep safe the customer identity. These softwares help in securing the data as well as providing a better user experience through single sign on, passwordless authenti

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