Health Codes (Chinese mobile app group)
A Health Code is a type of application used during COVID-19 in mainland China. It was used as an e-passport that reports if the user has been in an area with current cases of infection. An applicant provides information such as travel history, residence, and medical records. The application will then generate a QR code that identifies the individual's risk level as red, yellow, or green. As of April 2020, over 200 cities and 20 provinces employed health code supported by Alipay. There are a wide range of health codes run by different localities. While many assumed these codes would be phased out after the pandemic, research indicates their continued use and integration beyond the health crisis.
History
On February 7, 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak was reignited when the winter break was over. Zhou Jiangyong, a government officer in Hangzhou, suggested the issuance of a Health Code. On February 9, Shenzhen was the first city to promote Health Code.On February 11, Alibaba cooperated with Hangzhou city government with devising the application. As of February 15, the coverage enlarged to Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, and other cities in the province.
On May 22, the Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission held a special meeting to promote the normalized use of health codes. It was formulated in the originally collected health codes to integrate electronic medical records, health checkups, and lifestyle management data to compare users' health indicators with the health code colors to build a personal health index ranking.
The predecessor of this program can be traced back to the "Enterprise Employee Health Code", which was developed by DingTalk, a subsidiary of Alibaba that provides support for enterprise employee management. After the Hangzhou Municipal People's Government promoted the restart of the economy and epidemic prevention needs, decided to cooperate with DingTalk, Alipay and other enterprises to develop Hangzhou Health Code. Zheng Rongxin, director of Hangzhou's Data Resources Management Bureau, has said to the public, "Hangzhou Health Code is a simplified version of the corporate employee health code.", and another network enterprise Tencent also almost the same time, put into the development of health code program.
Procedure
Application materials and collection
Individuals can choose Alipay, WeChat, provincial government service clients or mini programs to declare personal data and receive health codes. Whether they are mainland residents, Hong Kong and Macao residents, Taiwan residents and foreigners, they can complete real-name authentication. Apply for the epidemic prevention health code in Alipay and WeChat, and the data will be connected to the national government platform. After entering the prefecture-level option, the individual will be required to authorize the national government platform to obtain the individual's name, ID number, mobile phone number, and location information. After filling in personal information, health status, travel history, place of residence, and contact with suspected or confirmed virus patients, the program will automatically generate a QR code. In order to facilitate the application of foreigners, some local governments have also introduced the English version of the health code.Considering that some elderly and children cannot apply for a health code without a smart phone, some places have launched a service to apply for a health code on an agency. According to the local situation, the agent can use the citizen card, printed paper, etc. to verify the code in the relevant scenes, or be presented by the peers. For areas where there is no provision for collection, if special persons need to enter a specific place, they can present an ID card, a paper health certificate, etc. instead of a health code. In addition, in response to the situation that students cannot bring their mobile phones into the school, some areas have developed cards such as "smart education cards". When students enter the school, they can read the card on the machine to determine the health code status.
Data and code colors
Health codes in various parts of mainland China are led by local governments, and their data comes from the information declared by local big data centers and users themselves, and they are run by algorithms and rules formulated by the government.The data of personal health code mainly comes from big data; coupled with the function of roaming and positioning across provinces and cities, it can clearly confirm the personal track within 14 days. Personal data includes traffic data, operator data, and financial institution payment data. This is used to achieve accurate and traceable epidemic prevention and control. The health code is divided into three-colors, from least restrictive to most restrictive: green, yellow, and red. However, due to differences in the epidemic situation and prevention and control requirements in various regions, the meanings of the three colors are also different. From a national perspective, green generally means that the person has no abnormalities, is in a healthy state, and can pass normally. Yellow and red indicate that the person is a close contact who needs isolation or medical observation, or is a person from a key country or region of the epidemic and who has been in the corresponding health code for less than 14 days, or a confirmed case of new coronary pneumonia who has not recovered, for which a suspected case has not been ruled out. Patients with fever or asymptomatic infections are not allowed to pass normally. However, some cities require people who have been given red and yellow codes to complete the health check-in continuously before they can be converted to green codes.For example, in Shanghai, anyone who has no evidence of a negative COVID-19 test before March 16 will have a yellow code, and in Beijing, travellers from areas with COVID-19 cases will get a yellow code.
List of Chinese regional health codes
International version
Starting April 2020, the Civil Aviation Administration of China and General Administration of Customs required all Chinese citizens and eligible alien visitors taking flights to China to fill out questionnaires of the Health Code International Version to obtain a green code to board day by day starting from 14 days before departure and required that it be verified by airline's ground staffs for check-in and boarding. The airline will allow passengers to board based on the status of the Code and other factors. In the event of a typo or error, passengers needed to contact the Global Consular Protection and Service Emergency Hotline of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China for background processing.In July 2020, the Chinese government promulgated the Announcement on the Boarding of Passengers on Flights to China with a Negative Test Certification for the Novel Coronavirus Test, which requires passengers to undergo nucleic acid testing to apply for a green Health Code before taking the flight to China. The Health Code International Version added a "PCR code" entry on July 27. Passengers will obtain a green health code with the "HS" mark after uploading a negative PCR COVID test certificate and being reviewed by the embassy or consulate of the country of departure.
At the end of October, requirements for obtaining a green health code were modified, a negative Antibody test was added in addition to the existing PCR test, and such COVID tests should be conducted only in the city where the direct-flight to China depart. In January 2021, some Chinese embassies and consulates abroad issued a notice reiterating that international travel to China should meet the principle of "non-essential, non-urgent, no travel", and announced that embassies and consulates will consider the necessity of travel when deciding whether to issue a green code: passengers who "casually visits relatives and friends" may not be able to get the green code for boarding even if they have a negative test report.
Place code
The place code is a proprietary two-dimensional code generated by the health code system for key places, which identifies the location of the place, the name of the place and other information. The automatic registration of information for people entering and leaving the place, while verifying the health information of people entering and leaving the place, facilitating the management of the place. Place code is a proprietary two-dimensional code used by personnel to enter the key places, is an independent identification code generated by the health code system for key places. By scanning the place code, the information of all the people entering and leaving the place can be registered automatically, and the health card status of the people entering and leaving the place at that time will also be displayed.There are basically three roles of the place code. First, it is convenient for the public to travel. The automated registration of information through the place code for people entering and leaving the place, while verifying the health code status information of people entering and leaving the place; after sweeping the place code, the system will automatically jump to the health status information of the health code, without having to repeat the bright code.
Second, accurate retrospective investigation. In the case of a local epidemic, you can quickly correlate to other people who have scanned the place code through the sweeping records of the newly crowned confirmed cases or close contacts, so as to facilitate the relevant departments to carry out accurate retrospective investigation and avoid the spread of the epidemic.
Third, the protection of personal information. At present, access to places, place managers require the public to carry out manual information registration, compared with manual information registration, the application of the place code can reduce the number of sensitive personal information transmission levels and the number of people handling.