China’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Surveillance and Autonomy

Cassiano, Marcella Siqueira; Haggerty, Kevin D.; Bernot, Ausma

doi:10.24908/ss.v19i1.14550

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Previous studies of emerging technologies in the pandemic centre on distance learning, 7 efficacy and accuracy of contact tracing, 8 COVID-19 risk estimation in education setting, 9 public perceptions and attitudes towards these digital tools, 10 , 11 or the discussion of liberty and autonomy under the expanding digital surveillance. 12 …”

Section: Biosecurity Health and Exclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing through big data: An ethnographic exploration of invisible lives in China's digital surveillance of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

Zhang

Rafiq

2023

DIGITAL HEALTH

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Introduction/Background Since 2020, China has implemented unprecedented digital health surveillance over citizens and residents in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. We explore the implementation of Health Code ( jiankang ma), a contract-tracing and risk assessment app for coronavirus disease 2019, in China. By engaging with the concept of ‘ocular ethics’, we ask why and how some populations become invisible in China's Health Code surveillance system. Methods This study used an ethnographic approach to critically examine the role of digital technology in the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic governance. Three months of participant observation and 20 interviews were conducted to understand the design of Health Code and the situation of homeless population. Results We find that China's digital health surveillance during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has failed to cover the homeless population, who either fail to access Health Code or find ways to avoid its mandatory health surveillance. We further summarize four problems resulting in their exclusion, including the loss of ID cards, access to smartphones and phone numbers, problematic design and elastic surveillance, and the neglect of homeless community's precarious living situation. Conclusion Situating our work in the literature on theories of surveillance and anthropology of pandemics, we argue that without recognizing the structural problems embedded in homelessness, a large number of poor and homeless migrants are rendered invisible in this data-driven health surveillance, which further pushes them into social exclusion.

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Section: Biosecurity Health and Exclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing through big data: An ethnographic exploration of invisible lives in China's digital surveillance of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

Zhang

Rafiq

2023

DIGITAL HEALTH

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“…Referred to as China's 'digital defense line' ( shuzi fangxian ) by law enforcement (Hangzhou Public Security, 2020 ), health codes were a key element in China's pandemic management. They also helped reconcile personal regulation by enlisting autonomous decision making, such as a person deciding on what means of transportation is safer to take to work (Siqueira Cassiano et al, 2021 ). Health codes integrated national set of big data health statistics between people and the government, including law enforcement, in a 'closed loop' of compliance monitoring (Hangzhou Public Security, 2020 ; Hubei Daily, 2020a ).…”

Section: Technological–structural Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

China's COVID‐19 pandemic response: A first anniversary assessment

Bernot

Cassiano

2022

Contingencies & Crisis Mgmt

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The literature on crisis management reports that crises can be critical for organizations, including state and extra‐state actors; they either break down or reinvent themselves. Successful organizations, those that do not break down, use situations of crisis to restructure themselves and improve their performance. Applicable to all crises, this reasoning is also valid for the COVID‐19 pandemic and for government organizations in China. Drawing on documentary analysis, this article examines China's pandemic response from the social–political, technological and psychological perspectives using a holistic crisis management framework. It demonstrates that the Chinese state bureaucracy has assembled, expanded and strengthened its surveillance strategies to strive for comprehensive crisis response.

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“…In the People’s Republic of China, the Alipay Health Code system assigns individuals differently coloured codes on the basis of COVID-19 status ( Chuncheng, 2021 ; Siqueira Cassiano et al , 2021 ). The system pivots on the downloading of apps that convert smartphones into, effectively, ‘electronic passes’ ( Ling, 2020 , p. 14).…”

Section: Surveillance and Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Surveillance Capitalism, COVID-19 and Social Work’: A Note on Uncertain Future(s)

Garrett

2021

The British Journal of Social Work

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Drawing on Shoshana Zuboff's (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, along with additional sources not ordinarily referenced in the social work literature, the article examines some of the economic and political imperatives that are driving forward new surveillance practices. The aspiration is to provide conceptual coordinates enabling practitioners, educators and those receiving social work services to arrive at a theoretically expansive sense of what may be occurring across a societal canvas. The focus is on a cluster of five enmeshed themes: first, what Zuboff means by ‘surveillance capitalism’; second, why this form of capitalism has appeared so quickly over the past couple of decades; third, what the tech corporations, such as Google, seek to achieve; fourth, how surveillance capitalists aim to eliminate chance by refining technologies so as to try and constitute us as predictable human subjects; fifth, the trajectory of surveillance capitalist interventions and how they are ‘doubling down’ on the processes of data extraction. Zuboff’s book was completed prior to theCOVID-19 global pandemic and, in the latter part of article, it is argued that the current crisis will result in new forms of surveillance becoming socially embedded.

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China’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Surveillance and Autonomy

Cited by 11 publications

References 5 publications

Governing through big data: An ethnographic exploration of invisible lives in China's digital surveillance of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

Governing through big data: An ethnographic exploration of invisible lives in China's digital surveillance of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

China's COVID‐19 pandemic response: A first anniversary assessment

‘Surveillance Capitalism, COVID-19 and Social Work’: A Note on Uncertain Future(s)

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