“China is tracking people by installing QR codes on their homes to gain instant access to the personal data of the people living there. » This is what a publication posted on Wednesday December 13, 2023 on X (Twitter) asserts a little too quickly, which has garnered nearly a million views.
The publication contains a video, which shows people sticking QR codes on building facades. “If a friend wants to sleep at your house for a night, you must first inform the police,” the viral post even states.
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Images filmed in Shenzhen
Several elements of the video indicate that at least some of the images seen in the video were filmed in Shenzhen, China. The red outfit, worn by two people in the video, corresponds to the outfit of workers at the “Shenzhen community center”, who carry out missions related to health or even housing.
We can recognize this outfit thanks to the hammer and sickle logo in the center of a heart, and flower-shaped patterns that run along the bottom of the clothes. In the first sequence of the video also appears a telephone number, which is associated with a company based in Guangming district, Shenzhen.
The logo on the shoulder pads of a person in blue outfit in the video is also that of the “Shenzhen Community Management” organization. As indicated in the account of this organization on WeChat (Chinese social network), this office is notably in charge of “rental housing in Shenzhen”. We also find this logo on the cards containing the QR codes which are pasted in the video.
20 minutes was not able to find the original source which would ensure the context of this video. However, an inscription in Chinese, present on the first images, gives an indication. It reads “Building QR code update”.
QR codes that provide information about accommodation
From this information, it appears that the city’s “community management” center has already organized several campaigns aimed at “updating” QR codes placed at the entrance to buildings. Several Chinese websites report, for example, that an action to “update” and “promote” QRs to residents was organized in April 2021.
“Network staff also promote the role of the building’s QR code to residents, telling them that as long as their mobile phones scan the QR code, they can use the WeChat public number” Community Network Management of Shenzhen” to quickly find out the code of their building, the address of the building, the building that is the responsibility of the network staff, the building that belongs to the primary school and the school district secondary, etc. », We can read in one of the articles.
In the photos accompanying these articles, there are people wearing outfits featuring the Shenzhen Community Network Management staff logo, similar to the one worn by some people in the video.
An article published in April 2021 on the WeChat account “Guangming District Community Network Management” details the purpose of these QR codes, introduced by the city in 2020. “House codes are used to assign “house numbers identification “unique to houses, thereby effectively solving problems such as incomplete house addresses, inaccurate positioning and unclear base numbers, and to help residents manage their housing and to provide timely services such as certificates, registration of a business entity, diplomas, etc. “. The photos accompanying the article also show members of Community Network Management staff performing gestures similar to those visible in the video.