China turns to AI, data

A man who had travelled to Wuhan -- the central city at the heart of China’s coronavirus crisis -- was surprised when police showed up at his door after he returned home, asking to check his temperature.

The man, who had quarantined himself at home in Nanjing, eastern Jiangsu province, said he had not told anyone about his recent trip to the city.

But by trawling through travel data from Wuhan, local authorities were able to identify him and dispatch officers to his home last week, according to a newspaper article posted by the Nanjing government.

As Chinese authorities race to contain the spread of a new virus, which has infected more than 34,000 people and killed more than 700 in China, Beijing is turning to a familiar set of tools to find and prevent potential infections: data tracking and artificial intelligence.

Several Chinese tech firms have developed apps to help people check if they have taken the same flight or train as confirmed virus patients, scraping data from lists published by state media.

In Guangzhou, southern Guangdong province, robots at one public plaza have even been deployed to scold passersby who are not wearing masks, according to the state-run Global Times.

And in Beijing, one neighbourhood committee responsible for an apartment complex of about 2,400 households said they used flight and train data to keep track of everyone’s recent travel record.

As Chinese authorities search for potential infections, a point of focus has been detecting fevers, a common symptom of the disease.

While neighbourhoods and office buildings rely primarily on hand-held thermometers, public transport hubs are also trialling fever detection systems that use artificial intelligence and infrared cameras.

In Beijing, a system developed by Chinese search giant Baidu screens travellers at the Qinghe railway station using infrared and face detection technology, which automatically photographs each person’s face.

If someone has a body temperature of 399 degrees Fahrenheit or above, the system sets off an alarm -- prompting a secondary check by station staff.

According to the company, its system can check more than 200 people a minute, far faster than the thermal scanners used at airports.