Big data versus big virus: applications track quarantined people

Text by: Stéphane Lagarde Follow

In China and South Korea, people in quarantine are tracked via an application on their mobile phone. Practices that do not shock in times of epidemics but which raise questions about data protection.

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With our regional correspondent,

In South Korea, travelers arriving from China subject to an auto-quarantine must download this weekend an application on their smartphones. 30,000 people are affected, a majority of them in Daegu and its region, the epicenter of viral pneumonia in the country. The principle is simple: after downloading the application, you must check the symptom boxes every day: " Do you have a fever, yes or no?" " Are you coughing?" " Are you having trouble breathing?" Based on this information, either you stay at home or you are invited to come for a coronavirus test.

Tracking the coronavirus ... and more if affinities

But beyond this information, the GPS contained in the application is also a cookie. If you do not respect this period of isolation, if for example you go to a busy place like a shopping center, or the metro, then the alert goes off. Your phone rings, and of course the alert is transferred to the health authorities who can send your location to the police. This system was put in place because, despite a fine of almost 7,500 euros for those who do not respect the instructions, some continued to do as they wished.

It is a system that also exists in China. There obviously, it is a QR code on the smartphone for all citizens. Then, a tricolor, green, yellow, or red code that guides your movements. It was first set up in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, which was badly affected by the epidemic, before being extended to other cities. It is the headquarters of Alibaba, the online retail giant that created this GPS system linked to Alipay , the electronic payment app on mobile phones in China. " Green Code, you can move! Red or yellow: notify immediately! "Say the propaganda banners in Hangzhou, where Wang Xiaoyan, a 31-year-old accountant, is located:" I'm lucky, I have a green code. The color is based on our movements in the 14 days preceding. They want to know if you have left town or if you have had a fever. In Hangzhou, you need this application to go to work, to enter your residence or to go to the mall. "

A mandatory application to get around

The police can intervene if you do not respect the color code, the "Alipay health code" as the Chinese media call it. You must show white legs or in any case green phone wherever you go. So there are sometimes bugs … Some ended up with a red code without having been in a risk zone or without having frequented the sick, and they were quickly caught by the patrol, sometimes by car. As you understood at the time of the coronavirus, medical confidentiality no longer exists, which does not seem to bother Huang Guochao, 32, an employee of an import-export company in Yiwu: “ I heard that those who have a yellow or red code must remain confined for 14 days for the reds, and 7 days for the yellows. During this period, you must remain logged into the application and respond to the information requested. At the end if all goes well, the code turns green! I agree to entrust my personal data. The police are aware of my movements. It's a special time, it's to protect us. "

Large-scale human intelligence

An application intended to protect healthy people, but without protection of private data. In Korea, you can "forget" your phone at home and therefore perhaps go under the radars which is obviously not advised at all. But in China, without your laptop, you can't do your shopping. Some defenders of liberties, even if they are not many, fear that this tracking of digital traces will remain in place after the epidemic. In any case, you should know that before this application, the Chinese regime had reactivated a system of mass control, based on human intelligence in the old way, that of the neighborhood committees which also monitor your comings and goings and prevent you from leave your apartment if you are considered to be at risk.

► Read also: The coronavirus makes e-health, telework, online consumption flourish

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