China is ahead on a lot of things that involve using phone technology, but that's because they have total control over their service providers, and because when you sign up for your number, if you read the fine print, you authorize them to use your GPS positioning data at will. Now, many will think of that as an invasion of privacy, but law enforcement in the US use it all the time, along with your car data to do the same thing.

Anyway, this has obviously been in development for a while, but was pushed out in late February as a way to track if people had indeed been 'quarantined'. When we went back to work on 2/10, it was with government approval and inspections of our infection fighting measures in the company. When we began applying for our broader workforce to return to work, they then wanted guarantees from local housing areas that the individual had been sheltered up there for the mandatory 14 days since returning to Shanghai. Well, most housing areas (mine being an exception) didn't keep those records. They just enforced the 14-day rule, but wouldn't guarantee people hadn't snuck out. And then the government wanted companies bringing their employees back in to PROVE it or SPONSOR that they knew we had been back 14 days and quarantined.

We believed our workers of course, they were getting paid, why lie about if you got home 2/1 or 2/5, you aren't losing money staying at home. But to find a way, we decided that they could use local home delivery order history, CCTV of entering the gate at their housing area, even receipts for store purchases locally.

The government figured it out faster and on 2/18 started testing the Shanghai 'sui-shen-ma' (which means "wherever-Shanghai-code" ). The code basically turns red, yellow, or green depending on your status. And the status is dependent on 1) you are registered with police to live in Shanghai (required by law), 2) you have a cell phone with GPS, 3) you have services like Alipay/Wechat pay. Using these three, it checks your location for the past 14 days. There's an algorithm that makes sure you have been at your registered address, and primarily only one other location (work). Anyway, the result of which is this.



And it's current, so if this person (who is my barber) leaves Shanghai and goes to any area of high risk, it will turn red. And they need to quarantine again. And, service providers like barbers, footrub (if they are even allowed to open), gyms, doctors, etc are all required to SHOW if they will have any physical proximity or contact with you, and you are required to show yours to enter their place of work.

People have already found different ways to use this, like limiting people entering the subway. You have to scan your code to pass the barriers. Or to get on public transportation. On the face, it sounds intrusive. In practice, I don't worry about my GPS data getting me in trouble. So, I think it's a fabulous tool.