QR codes, health passports: China’s tech arsenal against a pandemic

A customer making a payment using a Wechat QR payment code (centre) via her smartphone, next to an Alipay QR code (left), at a vegetable market in Beijing. Worries over privacy and data security have been heightened by the health codes and fears it marks a rush of government surveillance into hundreds of millions of lives. — AFP

BEIJING: Daily life in China follows a rhythm of digital check-ins, with the QR code – at offices, malls and transport hubs – an integral defence against Covid-19 that helps to track, trace and isolate patients.

Now the country where the coronavirus was first detected is launching a digital “health passport” for its 1.4 billion population which it hopes will eventually re-start international travel.