Zhao Litao

Zhao Litao

Senior Research Fellow, East Asian Institute, NUS

Dr Zhao Litao is a senior research fellow with the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include social stratification, sociology of education, organisational analysis and China’s social policy. He obtained his PhD in Sociology from Stanford University and his work has been published in journals such as China Quarterly, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, International Journal of Educational Development, Built Environment, and Social Sciences in China.

 

 

 

A worker in a protective suit shows a QR code to residents lining up for nucleic acid testing, as the second stage of a two-stage lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) begins in Shanghai, China, 1 April 2022. (Aly Song/Reuters)

How China's health code app permeates daily life and may still play a role post-Covid

China’s use of the health code for pandemic control has illustrated the potential of digital technologies in the 21st century. However, there are concerns about the blurring of the lines between digital surveillance and public service provision, and fears that tech giants and local governments will take advantage of the greater access to personal data they have been given.