The Chinese govt is repurposing its COVID health and contact tracing app to elevate its surveillance effort on citizens, including against criminals and dissidents. The government can make a person's health app to turn red to prevent the person from travelling.

In a recent case, a human-rights lawyer’s health app was suddenly switched to “red” when he attempted to travel to Shanghai to meet a dissident. 

This authoritarian approach has been consistent ever since the Chinese Communist Party took control of the mainland in 1949, only becoming more powerful in the last twenty years or so with the installation of millions of cameras to watch every street corner, and now with these apps to watch and control every citizen's movement.

For people living in China, there is no escape in sight. Perhaps they can get some freedom in the metaverse space? It's not hard to imaging that even that may soon be under the surveillance by the CCP.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/world/asia/covid-restrictions-china-lockdown.html?