China rolls out fresh data collection campaign to combat coronavirus

A woman uses her mobile phone behind barbed wire at an entrance of a residential compound in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Hubei province. [Reuters]

China’s local governments are ramping up surveillance efforts with new data collection campaigns to better trace residents’ moves in public areas, seeking to curb the coronavirus outbreak but heightening privacy concerns.

At least 15 provinces and cities with a combined population of over 358 million have announced such “big data” measures this month, adding to a host of monitoring tools already being used, such as facial recognition and phone data tracking.