China is using a very modern way of fighting the spread of the virus by using QR codes to individuals with smartphones to give or take away access. Alibaba and Tencent have partnered up for this ginormous endeavor.
You read it right, QR codes to provide or take away access to civilians. The Chinese government has enlisted the help of the two biggest tech giants in Asia right now to help spread a nationwide color-based tracking system.
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How Does it Work
Alipay, a payment app owned by Alibaba's subsidiary Ant Financial, recently released a new feature that is able to send colo-based QR code to individuals via their smartphones bases on the answers to an online health survey.
Civilians are asked to answer a survey in the app and based on their answers the QR code will assign them of their specified colors. Now being used in the Southern City of Shenzen and the rest of China is set to follow suit.
This is all good and well if honesty would be the case because there are so far 100 million Chinese residents who are in lockdown due to fear of getting the virus from going outside or contact with people.
What Each Color Represents
Depending on the symptoms they have been experiencing or if they traveled recently and so on. Colors will be designated if you are free to go about your business our go into self-induced lockdown for the public safety.
GREEN means the user can travel freely; YELLOW prompts the user to follow some instructions but mainly has to quarantine himself for at least 7-days; and RED for people with the most severe cases which carries at least two weeks of quarantine and need users to check-in regularly via the chat in Alibaba.
What Companies are Enlisted
So far only two companies have been confirmed to combat the spread of the virus. They are the Alibaba Group Holdings and Tencent Holdings.
Alibaba Group Holdings is Asia's largest digital advertising, e-commerce and cloud platform to date. As for Tencent Holdings, it is one of the largest video game companies and also owns the popular messaging app WeChat.
What Other Modern Means Does China Utilize?
China lets the police use drones as well as robots to collect data especially in areas that have a high concentration of infected people. Which is only natural but unnerving at the same time. They use the QR codes as well to allow citizens to enter buildings to make sure the spread of infection is minimized due to the alarming number of cases in Mainland China.
State media reports describe the system is used as a tool to travel checkpoints like trains stations or highways. All the way down to the neighborhood level. It's being used in the province of Hangzhou now and will be utilized by the rest of the world once the product is done with its alpha phase.
The spread of the COVID-19 is indeed alarming but China and the rest of the world is doing what it can to cope with the outbreak. Safety measures will be improved and precautions will definitely be necessary.
