Wuxi city destroys COVID-related data to protect privacy

Wuxi, Jiangsu province, destroyed 1 billion pieces of personal data related to COVID-19 on Thursday to avoid data breaches and protect citizen privacy.

According to the Wuxi Big Data Administration, the city had collected personal data that related to COVID-19 prevention and control, such as PCR test monitoring and tracing people who might become infected.

Yan Chunshui, deputy director of the administration, said destroying the data helps prevent personal information from being abused.

"Destroying the data is one of the most effective ways to prevent data breaches," he said. "It also saves storage space and improves the storage efficiency of local government cloud services."

To guarantee that the data had been destroyed and cannot be restored, the local government invited third-party audit and notary office workers to participate in the process.

In February, Guangdong province said in a notice that it would delete and destroy data relating to its "health code" and protect citizen privacy.

According to National Business Daily, nearly 900 million people in China had applied for a health code during the pandemic. Digital health codes have been used more than 60 billion times.