the worst is over at least that's what
the Chinese authorities hope today
President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan where
the corona virus was first detected and
where the number of new cases has
dramatically declined emergency
hospitals are being decommissioned now
but physical contact is still
discouraged you all wear protective
suits and masks so I can't see your real
faces but in my heart you are the most
lovely people therefore on behalf of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party
of China I would like to express my
sincere condolences and pay high respect
to you patients are being discharged
according to the w-h-o China's
aggressive response has brought success
the forcible lockdown of 50 million
people and a restriction on social
gathering is countrywide will be lifted
but what about the new surveillance
techniques introduced to curb the spread
in Hangzhou to enter a tower block you
need to have your temperature taken and
registered and you must have an app on
your phone into which you input your
name temperature recent travel and ID
number the information generates a color
code in Hangzhou to go out of the
community or to public activities you
need to have a green code this green
yellow or red code is automatically
decided through the system it uses big
data to decide whether you've been to
affected districts or come into contact
with those people but what if you're
well and get a red code anyway this man
says he's self isolated while visiting
and Wei province near Wuhan and back
home in Shanghai but there's no way to
challenge the technology our office
building here you need to register you
need to show the code to demonstrate
that you're healthy so when I was red
there was no way I could go to the
office and work I didn't do anything
then after 2 or 3 days I looked and
suddenly it was green I don't know why
but I think that although it's not
really reasonable it is still a
preventative
season five but few know exactly how
their data is being used we actually
looked at the back-end code that the the
app was running and what you could see
is the moment that a user gives it
permission to access data it immediately
sends a function that says report info
and location to police and then we
looked into it and the police were a key
developer of the product as well and so
from that you can tell that the data is
basically being sent back to to the
police the moment somebody actually uses
the app in some two hundred Chinese
cities you now need a green code to get
on public transport without it you can
do almost nothing no crisis should go to
waste
the corona virus has given the Chinese
Communist Party an opportunity to
increase state surveillance knowing that
most people will be more worried about
the epidemic than their privacy I'm not
an expert but if the government says
this is useful I believe them a Chinese
company has now developed facial
recognition technology that works even
if you're wearing a mask the epidemic
has enabled the Chinese authorities to
normalize digital social control
something they're unlikely to relinquish
it's been suggested that China's
authoritarian leader lost credibility
because of the initial cover-up of the
epidemic but in Chinese the word for
crisis is made up of two characters
danger and opportunity Lindsey Hilsum
reporting well now earlier I spoke to
the lawyer Neurotech oh who is from the
Muslim Weger community more than a
million of whom are currently being held
in camps by the Chinese authorities I
began by asking him how the corona virus
is affecting the weaker people the
weaker people have been treated as not
second-class citizen a third class
citizen at least as long as I have been
breathing I never thought that I would
be talking about the way that my parents
brought me to this world as much as I
have in the last two or three years
because this oppression used to be
but now it's worse and adding the
current health crisis we worried that if
the spice makes it to the camp we're
talking about unthinkable casualties if
it was a million Wiggins at least at
least in the United States government
estimates anything anywhere from two two
million to 3 million we girls and other
Turkic Muslim being detained in a
modern-day concentration camps so and to
this day World Health Organization or
other international entities were not
granted access to the camp's to make
sure that at least there's a there's a
healthcare let me bring you then to this
this app right there is monitoring
people in the affected areas of China
you you believe that in fact it is more
than simply monitoring the health
conditions of the people the the China's
government before the current crisis
started to help that crisis virus crisis
started they already monitoring every
aspect of Weger lives so any movement
every moment that you made even your
door at your house has a QR code but
this this is reaching out beyond Regas
this is this is anybody in the affected
areas can be issued with this app so
this country has already been deeply
surveilled and this new app is adding
another layer for the Chinese government
to Jinping's China to monitor their own
citizens but then effectively China has
become the first digital dictatorship it
said it said you know this this is this
kind of things that you read normally in
the science fiction dystopia way today
the Chinese government not only using
these technologies to surveil its own
citizens but also actively promoting
that so they're not you're saying about
this app is that the medical crisis that
is confronting China is actually
enabling them at the same time to serve
deeply penetrate
digitally yes the activities of every
Chinese citizen right that's exactly
right and also it's serving the
political purposes of the state last
year New York Times reported that there
about 18 countries around the world
including Germany surprisingly already
looking into the Chinese way of serving
its own citizens a to make sure that
there is no political upheaval cooking
up that includes a devoting process or
individual voting records but if the
Chinese ambassador was sitting here
right he would say no no no what this
app is doing is enabling us to look at
the medical condition of people
suffering from this virus it's a
wonderful thing and then the same same
question be asked why other countries
countries like UK the United States
others don't use that kind of
surveillance to monitor the sick people
they put them in a hospital thank you
very much indeed for coming in thank you
very much for having me