Public health is the perfect excuse to put people under constant surveillance, as the Chinese government has discovered in the world of COVID-19, and now that the disease is on the wane, the thinking seems to be: why not continue with the monitoring?

For months, Chinese residents on the mainland went about their lives checking in and out of locations — from home to the office to the grocer’s and even the park — using “health codes” assigned to them from March as a containment measure against the virus.

The system enables the authorities to track the movement of people so they can sort out chains of transmission, locate close contacts of patients and better identify potential infections.

But at the same time, public concerns stemming from the system’s infringement on citizens' privacy have become increasingly prevalent, especially with everyday lives and economic activities on the road to recovery.

Now, the authorities appear to be making use of public welfare as a reason to persuade people to accept a surveillance program which will enable the government to know one’s whereabouts at almost any point in time.

Li Ruizhe, 27, works at an internet company in Beijing. Just like many others who have migrated to the Chinese capital for a living, he lives in a small old apartment downtown.

Going home every day has become an issue, as his health code is the electronic certificate granting access to his residential community. And recently, with facial recognition cameras being installed, everyone in the neighborhood is required to officially register their facial features.

Li said he needed to check in and out with the health code up to 10 times a day because, in Beijing, it was required whether he was going to work, entering an office building, patronizing a restaurant or visiting a bank, not to mention using public transport.

In February, as the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing peaked, non-local tenants like Li would be denied entry to the community until the landlord showed up to vouch for his occupancy.

The reach of the health coding system into the population is massive. As the pandemic subsides, the Chinese authorities have started to connect people’s smartphones to an information database in order to surveil population flow.

In March, the New York Times analyzed the system and found that not only could it determine whether users were at risk of infection in real time, but it also seemed to share user information with the police.

As the pandemic pretext for implementing the system recedes, the government is showing no signs of discarding them. People still need to register with their health codes before entering and exiting most places in mainland China.

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