China has expanded the number of digital tools available to fight the pandemic by debuting the world’s first vaccine passport regime, which will roll out on Monday. Available on the omnipresent super-app WeChat, it’s designed to track the health, testing and vaccination status of those entering and leaving China. 

"We will take care to fully protect personal privacy and contribute to the mutual recognition of nucleic acid test results and vaccination records," Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a statement on Sunday. But human rights groups have raised concerns that the vaccine passport may become an extension of China’s already vast digital surveillance program which has ramped up since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. 

The Big Picture 

Ordinary life in China is already punctuated by continuous Covid-19 checkpoints. Since February 2020, Chinese citizens have had to use digital “health codes,” available on a variety of platforms including WeChat and AliPay, as well as government-built platforms, to gain access to public transport, shops, restaurants and malls. Scannable QR barcodes show up in a traffic light system of colors. Red means the user must immediately go into two-week quarantine; amber means someone may have to stay home for a week; green allows citizens to move about freely.