asiatimes | China used locational and other data from hundreds of millions of
smartphones to contain the spread of Covid-19, according to Chinese
sources familiar with the program.
In addition to draconian quarantine procedures, which kept more than
150 million Chinese in place at the February peak of the coronavirus
epidemic, China used sophisticated computational methods on a scale
never attempted in the West.
With more than 80,000 cases registered, China reported only 126 new
cases yesterday, compared to 851 in South Korea and 835 in Iran, out of a
total of 1,969 new cases worldwide. Chinese sources emphasize that the
artificial intelligence initiative supplemented basic public health
measures, which centered on quarantines and aggressive efforts to
convince Chinese citizens to change their behavior.
Chinese government algorithms can estimate the probability that a
given neighborhood or even an individual has exposure to Covid-19 by
matching the location of smartphones to known locations of infected
individuals or groups. The authorities use this information to use
limited medical resources more efficiently by, for example, directing
tests for the virus to high-risk subjects identified by the artificial
intelligence algorithm.
All smartphones with enabled GPS give telecom providers a precise
record of the user’s itinerary. Smartphone users in the United States
and Europe can access their own data, but privacy laws prevent the
government from collecting this data. China has no such privacy
constraints, and telecom providers have used locational data for years
for advertising.
A Chinese bank executive reports that his company purchases
locational data from telecom providers. “If you have walked by an auto
dealership three times in the last few weeks, we send you a text
advertising an auto loan,” the executive said. “We wouldn’t be allowed
to do that in the West.
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