Invaluable practice of protecting privacy: China Daily editorial

Kudos to those responsible for drawing up the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission's Jan 23 daily epidemiological report the way it was. 

For the first time since public health authorities across the country initiated the ritual of publishing mobility reports on those infected with the novel coronavirus, Saturday's Shanghai bulletin only identified the public venues the infected person had visited.

The standard practice has been publishing very detailed information about the person infected, in most cases including name, gender, age, occupation, relations with other people, as well as when and where the person had been before being found to have been infected.

Such exhaustive revelations may be meant to help potential victims who may have unwittingly come into contact with those carrying the virus and help them take self-protection measures. But while it does in some ways serve those purposes, the collateral damage to individual rights and freedoms has been, in some cases severe, even irreparable.

It is true that most Chinese residents seldom take their personal information particularly seriously. Usually they don't mind sharing all their personal data for some negligible convenience or discount. And that explains at least in part why e-commerce has seen explosive growth in China. 

The way epidemiological information was shared — before Shanghai made that important change — did not raise many eyebrows, until the publication of detailed personal information of one woman resulted in her being viciously trolled. From cases like these, the public, which once tended to blame the victims for transmitting the virus to others, have gradually come to the realization that many of the infected, are like themselves innocent hardworking breadwinners of their families, who have been unknowingly exposed to the virus. And more and more people are beginning to see the matter from a more understanding, sympathetic perspective.

The Shanghai Municipal Health Commission has set an invaluable example for its counterparts across the country in its display of respect for the individual amid such an unusual crisis, which has offered perfect excuses for many local authorities to ignore calls for proper protection of individual rights and freedoms. The decision-makers in Shanghai showed that it doesn't have to be the individual against the collective, and a balance can deliver win-win outcomes. 

The city of Beijing was quick to follow Shanghai's example, and it streamlined its daily report the next day. It is a practice that should be adopted nationwide as soon as possible.