Well we had a eye opening enforcement during the Covid19 spread. During the COVID-19 "zero-Covid" lockdowns in China , residents in cities like Wuhan, Xi'an, and Guiyang were put under severe restrictions that prevented them from buying food, medicine, and necessities, or selling goods. During the COVID-19 pandemic, China implemented a nationwide system of color-coded health apps on citizens' mobile phones to control movement and restrict any purchase or selling by the person or persons. These systems functioned as a digital "good citizen certificate" which determined whether an individual could buy goods, use transportation, or enter buildings, so it was a complete social enforcement. Here is some background..
"Wang Yu, hailed by the U.S. as an International Woman of Courage, has already been arrested, imprisoned and harassed by the Chinese Communist Party for her work as a human rights lawyer representing activists, Uyghur scholars and Falun Gong practitioners. Now, her movements within her home country have been restricted by a color-coded app on her phone that’s supposed to protect people from COVID-19.
The app and its color codes have become ubiquitous in China as the country has struggled to contain the coronavirus, pushing the public to a breaking point that resulted in protests over COVID restrictions late last month. The government announced last week that it would discontinue the national color-coded health app, but cities and provinces have their own versions, which have been more dominant. In Beijing last week, restaurants, offices, hotels and gyms were still requiring approved color codes to enter.
Drawing on telecommunications network data and PCR test results, the app is relatively simple. Everyone is assigned a QR code on their phone that switches between green, yellow and red, depending on factors such as whether they’ve been in the same spot as someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 (yellow) or if they themselves have tested positive (red). Only people with green codes can go about normal daily life."
www.latimes.com
"Wang Yu, hailed by the U.S. as an International Woman of Courage, has already been arrested, imprisoned and harassed by the Chinese Communist Party for her work as a human rights lawyer representing activists, Uyghur scholars and Falun Gong practitioners. Now, her movements within her home country have been restricted by a color-coded app on her phone that’s supposed to protect people from COVID-19.
The app and its color codes have become ubiquitous in China as the country has struggled to contain the coronavirus, pushing the public to a breaking point that resulted in protests over COVID restrictions late last month. The government announced last week that it would discontinue the national color-coded health app, but cities and provinces have their own versions, which have been more dominant. In Beijing last week, restaurants, offices, hotels and gyms were still requiring approved color codes to enter.
Drawing on telecommunications network data and PCR test results, the app is relatively simple. Everyone is assigned a QR code on their phone that switches between green, yellow and red, depending on factors such as whether they’ve been in the same spot as someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 (yellow) or if they themselves have tested positive (red). Only people with green codes can go about normal daily life."
China's COVID health apps being used for social and political control, activists say
The experience of human rights lawyer Wang Yu shows that China's cellphone health apps can become another tool of social and political control.
www.latimes.com
