Skip to main content

A Chinese city plans to monitor its citizens and rank them by healthiness with an app, making its emergency COVID-19 surveillance regime permanent

* A Chinese city is proposing a permanent health tracking app that gives people a daily score based on their habits like drinking, sleeping, and walking. * It would be similar to China's coronavirus tracking app, which gave people a color code that dictated whether they enter certain areas, and could track who they are near. * It is not clear if the new app would have the same use, or how the app will collect the data. * Privacy advocates warn that new tracking systems introduced during the coronavirus pandemic could become permanent or erode privacy rules around the world. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. A Chinese city is proposing making a version of the health surveillance app rolled out during the coronavirus pandemic a permanent system that would score and rank residents based on their health and daily habits. Hangzhou, a city in eastern China with around 10 million residents, has proposed a system that would give people a daily score based on their habits like steps taken, alcohol consumed, and how much sleep they got, CNBC reported. Those details and the person's health score would be displayed on their phone, where it can be scanned. The proposal is similar to the health app that parts of China rolled out in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which gave them a colored health code which, when scanned, determined if they could leave the house or enter certain buildings. The phone showed either red, yellow, or green, and used those results to control people's movements as well as track where they have been and who they came into contact with. The app, first pioneered in Hangzhou, is still in use in parts of the country even though China has largely controlled the outbreak, CNBC reported. Hangzhou officials announced Friday that they plan on making a version of it permanent, according to CNN. The Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission shared images of the proposed app that shows it displaying a health score between zero and 100, and a color gradient that goes from red to green. It is not clear if the new app would have the same use as the health-tracking app, or how it would collect data. According to CNN, the commission's director also said there could be a "group health score" for companies, which tracks overall employee behavior. The older health tracking app has been installed in messaging app WeChat and payment platform Alipay, which is operated by Alibaba. Both are extremely popular apps in China. Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate that owns Alipay, told CNBC that it has "not been contacted by any party with respect to this project." A spokesperson also said that protecting users' privacy is "a strict requirement for all third party service providers on our platform." The introduction of tracking apps and increased government surveillance around the world, in light of the coronavirus, has sparked deep privacy fears. Advocates worry that emergency monitoring measures could become public or influence the new normal. The proposed app also mirrors China's social credit system, which proposes ranking all of its citizens and punishes them for "bad" social behaviors like buying too many video games and posting what the government deems fake news online. As Business Insider has reported, the system lets people be rewarded or punished according to their scores, with punishment including banning people from trains, banning their kids from good schools, or killing their internet speeds. The system is being trialed piecemeal on millions, including in Hangzhou. Some Chinese citizens have expressed anger at the proposed new app, CNN reported. "Medical history and health checkup reports are personal privacy, why should they be included in health codes to show others?" one person said on popular microblogging platform Weibo. "Points will be deducted for smoking, drinking and not sleeping enough, does this mean our lives will be completely monitored?" Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly
https://bit.ly/2AcHBM1

Popular posts from this blog

How to enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to hear text read aloud

* You can enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to have written content read aloud. * Both Kindle content and your personal documents can utilize the text-to-speech feature. * Text-to-speech inputs are also available for languages other than English and can be downloaded via the progress bar within the book itself. * Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories. If you are vision-impaired or simply want to hear your book or document aloud rather than reading the text, Kindle Fire has a text-to-speech feature that will translate the written words to audio so you can listen aloud. Best of all, text-to-speech is not only available for Kindle books but also for many (though not all) personal text files. Turning on text-to-speech is easy and should only take a few seconds. Books in the Kindle store will even notify you if the capability is available before you purchase, though the feature must be turned on within the book or document itse...
Read more

The NSA warned staff that smartphone apps can track them. Here are their recommendations to avoid tracking.

* The NSA warned members of the US military and intelligence community this week that their smartphone apps could be tracking them and put their security at risk. * In guidance issued Tuesday, the agency noted that many apps make use of WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth to collect cellphone location information, which is typically sold to advertisers or third parties. * The agency recommended specific steps for staff to reduce their data exposure, like restricting app permissions and reducing web browsing on their smartphones. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The National Security Administration warned staff that the amount of data their smartphones track could pose a national security risk in new guidance issued Tuesday. The guidance highlights a practice that's common across Silicon Valley products but rarely understood by consumers: smartphones are constantly gathering information on users' location, through a combination of apps, the smartphone's o...
Read more

All the coolest features of every Tesla vehicle ever made or unveiled, ranked (TSLA)

* Tesla's vehicles are and always have been crammed with great ideas. * These range from touchscreen interfaces to innovative battery designs to staggering acceleration. * I've driven or experienced every vehicle Tesla has ever sold or intends to sell in the future. * Here are all my favorite features, ranked. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. In about two decades, Tesla has done what everyone in the auto industry thought was impossible: create an all-electric brand that could sell hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Tesla could have done that in a boring or modest way, developing  the equivalent of an electric VW Beetle. Instead, Tesla made fantastically compelling cars that are fast, look amazing, and are packed with features. Here's a rundown of all my favorites, ranked from bottom to top: FOLLOW US: On Facebook for more car and transportation content! Tesla has been in business for 17 years. In that period of time, it's consisten...
Read more