How China is using facial recognition tech to fight coronavirus

China is seeing a rise in Covid cases in its border city of Ruili which has reported a large influx of refugees from neigbouring Myanmar due to escalation of violence there. The city of more than 210,000 people has reported an increase in Covid cases, mostly among Myanmar nationals. The city discovered 155 cases over the past week in one of the worst virus flareups in recent months to hit China, according to data published Tuesday.

Authorities in Ruili have now rolled out facial recognition tech linked to personal health codes to squash the coronavirus outbreak. This is the first publicly reported instance of facial recognition being used to track a person's movements and health status as they enter and exit residential areas, supermarkets, transport hubs and other public places.

China is one of the world's most surveilled countries, with the government rushing to install more than 200 million CCTV cameras to "cover all public spaces" in the past five years. Surveillance has been widely used to combat Covid-19 in China, which was the first country to adopt a QR code system to log test results and track contacts.

Authorities in Ruili are using facial recognition cameras, smart door locks and road barriers in key areas to identify Covid infected persons. The scanners can check the temperatures of individuals, China National Radio reported. "Everyone who comes in and out needs to have their (health) code and face scanned to pass," officials in Ruili, in Yunnan province, told reporters on Saturday.

The slew of new health monitoring apps, however, has raised privacy concerns. There are no details on how long the database will hold records or whether officials will shut down the system, which is monitored by the city's pandemic prevention taskforce, once the outbreak is contained. Rights groups have criticised China's omnipresent surveillance net, saying it is used to silence dissent and target minority ethnic groups.