China rolls out software surveillance for the COVID-19
pandemic, alarming human rights advocates
April 14, 2020, 6:30 AM
"Wuhan, China, where the first reported cases of novel coronavirus emerged ten weeks ago, reopened its borders last week. There’s just one catch: A government surveillance app is required to enter and exit the region.
The Chinese government has begun to track some of its citizens through software that analyzes their personal data to sort individuals into color-coded categories – red, yellow or green – corresponding to their health status and level of risk for COVID-19.
The move has alarmed leading international human rights advocates, who fear that the government is merely using the ongoing public health crisis as a “convenient justification” to expand monitoring of its population.
“This is viewed as scary stuff from a human rights perspective,” Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, told ABC News. “[It is] yet another way to gather information about people to potentially use it against them in ways which there's no legal basis.”
moar:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/china-rolls-software-surveillance-covid-19-pandemic-alarming/story?id=70131355&cid=clicksource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed
dragonfly eye see all