Reports: Chinese Authorities Using COVID-Tracking App to Thwart Protesters

During the early months of the pandemic, the Chinese government developed a color-coded smartphone app to track the movement of people in its effort to control the spread of COVID-19 and implement its zero-COVID policy. This week, however, media reports surfaced that authorities in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, were now using the required codes to restrict the movement of people upset because local banks had frozen their deposits. Hundreds of depositors who had lost access to their funds had planned to travel to Zhengzhou on Monday, only to find their health codes had suddenly turned red. This meant…