China: Policing by the Covid app

Ian Williams on the threat to privacy as China’s virus ‘traffic light’ code is adapted for surveillance

The World Today
2 minute READ

Poets and artists have been inspired for centuries by the dreamy pagodas and pavilions of Hangzhou and its West Lake. Today, the city Marco Polo described as ‘paradise’ is providing a different sort of inspiration – to China’s surveillance state.

Three seemingly unrelated events – involving the city’s most famous son, a locally developed smartphone app that was at the heart of Beijing’s fight against the Covid pandemic, and a local wildlife park – provide important pointers as to where Xi Jinping’s digital control is heading next.

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