• Provinces and cities across China are slowly lifting their strict coronavirus lockdown measures. Wuhan, where the coronavirus broke out, plans to end its lockdown on April 8.
• Local authorities are trying to prevent further spread by controlling citizens’ movements via smartphone software installed in WeChat and Alipay, two popular instant-messaging and online payment apps.
• After people fill out a quick health survey, the software issues them with a colored health code — green, yellow, or red — which dictates whether they can leave the house and where they can go.
• Officials manning various checkpoints across the country are checking people’s health apps to see where they are allowed to go. Anyone with a green code is free to travel.
• But Western nations are critical of this mass surveillance tool and questioning what else the data is being used for.
• Scroll down to see how it works.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

As provinces and cities across China gradually roll back their coronavirus lockdown measures, authorities trying to prevent another outbreak are using smartphone software to monitor citizens’ health and dictate where they go.

Officials in Wuhan, where the virus first broke out, are …continued .
[Source: Business Insider]