Coronavirus: Beijing ‘gives green light’ for quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and mainland China even as Omicron has world on edge
- Long-awaited programme to begin shortly after Legislative Council election on December 19, insider tells the Post
- Government also reveals details of new health code app, which launches next week, and says locations visited in Hong Kong will not be automatically shared with mainland
The government also revealed details on Thursday about the new health code app that will essentially generate a ticket to cross the mainland China border but which has stoked privacy concerns among many Hongkongers.
To be eligible for the scheme, which also covers Macau, residents must have been using the existing “Leave Home Safe” risk-exposure app for at least three weeks and the data recorded during that time will be made available to mainland authorities.
“Everything that the user provides is on his or her consent,” Government Chief Information Officer Victor Lam Wai-kiu said. “The visit records will not be transferred automatically to the mainland or Macau authorities. Only when he or she is an infected person or has a high risk of infection, for example is identified as a close contact, then the mainland authorities can ask for the visit records of that particular person.”
Introducing the health code app was one of a handful of critical requirements that mainland officials presented to their Hong Kong counterparts during talks in Shenzhen late last month.