Hong Kong will launch a long-awaited Covid-19 health code compatible with the version used in mainland China on 10 December, one of the final pieces of the puzzle needed for a reopening of cross-border travel, the South China Morning Post reported.
The move is expected to have positive ramifications for travellers from Macao.
Hong Kong’s risk-exposure “Leave Home Safe” app will be updated from 9 am on Friday week, according to Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit Wing-hang, who said it would now include a function linking it to the health code registration website.
“We will launch the app next week for the public to test and trial and facilitate the gradual reopening of the border with mainland,” he said.
Sit added that the government would send outreach teams to help familiarise the public with the new health code, calling for telecom companies and charitable organisations to give free smartphones to the needy so they could download “Leave Home Safe” and access the new function.
Hong Kong’s health code would also be connected with Macao’s version for future resumption of cross-border travel, he said.
Following last week’s meeting between the governments of Hong Kong and Guangdong province, the two sides agreed to gradually reopen the border as soon as possible. Tony Wong Chi-kwong, deputy government chief information officer, said users would have to provide their full name and proof of home address to access the Hong Kong version of the health code.
Once all the information has been uploaded to the webpage, it will generate a colour-coded QR code, and the data will be sent to relevant government departments.
Only the green-coloured QR code will be accepted and scanned by border officers. The mainland version of the health code app tracks users’ whereabouts via mobile phone signal data from three major telecoms companies: China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile.
It can show which countries or cities a user has visited within a 14-day window. The tracking feature of the mainland’s health code app has raised privacy concerns among Hong Kong residents. But Hongkongers who do not need to travel to the mainland can continue using “Leave Home Safe”, which does not share data with the government or mainland authorities.
A daily quota for business people and residents travelling on compassionate grounds to neighbouring Guangdong province and possibly Macao could be in place this month – 21 months after all but three of the city’s borders were closed in the early days of the pandemic.
