response

In time of Covid-19 pandemic, Big Data is widely used. China regards health QR code and travel QR code invented by Xiaodong Ma as a good tool in prevention and monitoring of the pandemic. The health code shows someone’s states, healthy, indirect contact, close contact or infected using different colors red, yellow and green. And it could also record one’s nucleic acid duration, if the duration is more than several days, the color would become grey. The travel code records one’s travel trajectory in the past 14 days. If the pandemic broke out in one of the cities in the trajectory and the risk level of city(depend on the density of infected patients) was escalated, there would be a ‘*’ in the travel code means someone maybe a potential carrier of the virus and he or she maybe refused by some public places. The two codes use Big Data of citizens exactly and do work for epidemic prevention, however, call in question of ethics of them is also popular. The main issues addressed in this essay are three unethical risk of using two codes: a)Risk of ‘Regulatory Capture’ from ‘Public-Private Partnerships’ b)Risk of abuse not for epidemic prevention and control purposes and c)Risk of shelving basic principles of law due to the long-term influence of ‘Public Interest Priority’. 

First, the risk of 'Regulatory Capture’ from ‘Public-Private Partnerships'. It is hard for the government to prevent the pandemic alone, so assistance from social institutions like enterprises. The assistance was proved helpful, however, this kind of ‘Public-Private Partnerships’(Bing Li & Akintola Akintoye, An overview of public-private partnership, 2003), may also generate the ‘Regulatory Capture’(Ernesto Dal Bó, Regulatory Capture: A Review, 2006). Regulatory Capture is a form of corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker, or regulator is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological, or political interests of a minor constituency. It occurs when most or all of the benefits of a program go to some single, reasonably small interest but most or all of the costs will be borne by a large number of people. It is what happening in China now, citizens take nucleic acid for free, the cost seems be payed by the government, however, the expense still originates from taxpayers. Tax revenue per year is limited, more in nucleic acid, less in other aspects like education, health care, environment protection and etc. Ten nucleic acid enterprises in China earned 16 billion yuan(RMB) in the first half of the year. Citizens have to do the nucleic acid to get a ‘green code’ for their normal life. In the endless rounds of nucleic acid, citizens lost time and energy, government lost money, the enterprises were the only winner. In conclusion, unethical Regulatory Capture rose from color of the code is actually happening, if it was not controlled, health code may result in out of order.

Second, the risk of abuse not for epidemic prevention and control purposes. It is truth that health code determines relatively accurately the limits of individual freedom of movement while legally collecting personal information in compliance with laws and regulations. However, the collection of personal information is difficult to avoid being abused by public power. To meet epidemic prevention needs, governments have to frequently obtain mobile phone data from citizens based on their authority or external factors, but informed consent from citizens at the front end of the data is often difficult to achieve. For example, in June, 2022, nearly 14000 citizens who came Henan province from low-risk areas were given ‘red code’ because they have been to a village bank. Some depositors from other provinces were unable to return to their domicile due to the red code and had to sign a 'guarantee', which read 'no money has been deposited in the village bank and no online or offline petition is guaranteed'. The fact was money in this bank was diverted illegally and the equity hole was impossible to make up, so the bank corrupted some government stuff to do this. The scholar David Lyon believes that people 's acquiescence to the 'declaration of information' means that the 'surveillance culture' continues to expand, and further condones the penetration of public power into the daily lives of citizens, forming a 'flexible surveillance society'(Lyon, D., Surveillance society, 2001).In the special time of fighting Covidvirus, the problem could be temporarily shelved, however, citizens should know that it is unethical, and when the pandemic could be handled mildly, it need to be repaired immediately. 

Last, Risk of shelving basic principles of law due to the long-term influence of ‘Public Interest Priority’(KAKAVAND, M., & Turkashevand, S, The Jurisprudential Principles of the Preference of Public Interests over Individual Interest by Referring to the Opinions of Imam Khomeini and Sheikh Tūsi, 2020). The two codes really cost inconvenience and troubles in normal life. In my hometown, Qingdao City, a ‘green code’ which means negative nucleic acid in 48 hours and a travel code without ‘*’ are required to take public transportation in a long period of time. And I was stopped by the security of a shopping center in the June because the travel code showed I have just come from Wuhan, but there is no ‘*’ in my code! I heard many people complained having to walk to company in the morning because forgetting take the nucleic acid last night. Why not a taxi? Because a taxi may need the two codes! There is no low reads ‘citizens without green code must not take public transportation or go into the shopping center’, so in fact, my legal rights have been violated. This is ‘Public Interest Priority’, sacrificing personal interest for public interest. In special time of war, pandemic and etc, it is acceptable, however, it do shelve basic principles of law and may expend to future normal time.

In conclusion, health code and travel code did make a great difference in fighting Covid-19, they helped collect virus influence, decrease possible infected cases and reduce property loss, and they also have unethical features discussed above. Fostering strengths and circumventing weaknesses, readjusting continually following changes of the pandemic, they would be a good weapon. The suffering will eventually pass, tomorrow is better,