In China, most people agree to leave all personal information

"Can you upload all your medical records from the hospital in the group?" the doctor asked via a short message in the quarantine community's joint group on WeChat (China's largest social medium).

Actually, I shouldn't have been surprised because, like the other 30 residents, during the week I was able to follow the most intimate details of my neighbors' health status in conversations with our "supervisors". Maybe I should have just done what they said without hesitation. Because when I hesitated, I suddenly became awkward and looked to be someone who had something to hide.

In China, most people agree to provide all personal information requested, electronically or otherwise. They are simply used to being monitored and do not find it strange. As in neighboring countries such as Taiwan and South Korea, China uses personal information such as who is infected and exactly where they have been in recent weeks to track and limit the spread of Covid-19.

The contrast could not be greater against my old life as an EU correspondent, where the debates of integrity sometimes seemed to be the only thing that caused the MEPs to turn on. Integrity issues are an area where EU responsibility is clearly defined, and an area where several of the Member States have a modern history of the most negative consequences of the surveillance society. I am thinking of the East German security police Stasis monitoring of citizens, to name an example.

When the EU is now discussing developing a common app for infection detection, we can once again expect long debates about just integrity. Although Poland has already introduced an app that uploads "selfies" from the mobile - which allows Polish authorities to accurately geographically locate the users and thus map the spread of infection, there is a bit left before there is a common EU app.

Critics warn that the introduction of such apps can lead to new practices and new uses that may be difficult to reverse in the future. It is easy to increase surveillance of citizens, but it is more difficult to introduce legislation that rolls back the surveillance when the need is no longer as great.

In China, where I live today, I have to report my body temperature twice a day. If I want to walk into parks and public buildings, my cellphone's health app should flash green, which indicates that I am healthy. In Singapore, bluetooth technology is used which warns if someone infected with Covid-19 comes within two meters distance. In South Korea, through my mobile, I can know how many infected people I met during the day. In none of these countries has the debate about personal privacy been particularly serious. Here we know that big brother sees us.