▲In the early morning of January 5, due to the failure of Xi'an's "one code pass" twice in half a month, the director of the Xi'an Big Data Resources Management Bureau was suspended for inspection. Photo / Beijing News our video screenshot
Since the end of December last year, there have been indigenous cases in Xi'an, and there is a risk of community transmission and hidden transmission. Xi'an City resolutely adopted a lockdown policy, but the relevant supporting measures continued to fail to keep up. In particular, Xi'an's "one code pass", which must be relied on for citizens' travel and nucleic acid screening, collapsed twice in a row due to overloaded link visits on December 20 last year and January 4 this year, which caused a serious impact on epidemic prevention work.
On January 5, due to the collapse of the "one-code pass" due to poor performance of duties, the Xi'an Municipal Party Committee decided that Liu Jun, secretary of the party group and director of the Xi'an Big Data Resources Management Bureau, was suspended for inspection, and Liu Xin was appointed as a member of the party group and presided over the work. The change of coach highlights the importance of big data for epidemic prevention and control, but also reflects the fragility of digital epidemic prevention.
At present, the problem of "one code pass" in Xi'an is not anti-pressure has also attracted great attention from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released on January 4 that from December 30 to 31, 2021, Han Xia, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, went to the Shaanxi Provincial Communications Administration to conduct research on epidemic prevention and control work. It is expected that the Xi'an "one code pass" work class can find the crux of the problem as soon as possible, optimize the system, improve the details, and ensure that there is no longer congestion and downtime.
▲ On the morning of December 20, 2021, the office workers who were blocked outside the park due to the "one code pass" failure in Xi'an were blocked at the entrance of the xi'an national digital publishing base park. Photo/ Beijing News data map
Digital epidemic prevention is related to urban governance
With the wide and in-depth application of emerging information technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins in urban governance, big data management bureaus have been set up in various places, and big data centers or big data companies have been set up. However, if the Big Data Authority and big data centers only have a fashionable posture and fail to do their jobs and keep the bottom line, then it may pose a threat to urban governance.
Urban governance is also becoming more and more dependent on technology, and the risks of technology misuse and abuse are also emerging. Once the urban information infrastructure fails, then urban governance has the risk of "shutting down".
How to enhance the anti-risk and disaster preparedness capabilities of urban big data management, enhance the resilience and agility of smart cities, and realize the transformation of peacetime and wartime with peacetime warfare has become the key to the digital transformation of urban governance.
Digital epidemic prevention means that cities must have sufficient technical capabilities during the crisis management period to provide the necessary technical support for epidemic prevention and control. In particular, it is necessary to have scientific and reasonable prediction and preparation for key challenges such as peak visits, so as to avoid frequent problems when the crisis comes and endanger the operation of the city.
▲On December 20, 2021, the "one code pass" failure in Xi'an could not display the green code. Photo/ Beijing News data map
Improve vertical coordination and horizontal linkage capabilities
Recently, the Smart City Standards Working Group of the National Beacon Commission released the "White Paper on the Development of the City Brain (2022)", pointing out that the current challenge of the city brain lies in the imperfect construction of the operation and maintenance model, the lack of supervision and management system, the lack of information security guarantees, and the imperfect risk prevention and control mechanism.
For a megacity with a population of more than 10 million, it is necessary to anticipate the challenges posed by the crisis and make a sound and feasible emergency plan. The Xi'an Municipal Big Data Resources Administration attributed the collapse of Xi'an's "One Code Pass" to the high frequency of use and the excessive pressure on the network and platform. To this end, Xi'an has adopted flow restriction measures and encouraged people to avoid visiting as much as possible as non-essential. However, it is difficult to make citizens cooperate rationally, and the disorderly use of each person comes together, which brings about the collapse of the order of the digital platform.
The crisis means that the crisis is organic in danger, and the collapse of "one code pass" has made Xi'an pay more attention to the construction of big data infrastructure, which provides an opportunity to enhance the city's overall digital capabilities.
For example, the Spring Festival every year is the peak period for train ticket purchase, and the technical requirements for the ticket purchase system are extremely high. At this time, if people are discouraged from buying tickets at the wrong peak, it is tantamount to raising their hands and surrendering. This forced the railway department to expand the capacity system, establish and improve the technical coordination ability during the peak period of ticket purchase, and allocate the available computing power to jointly support.
The enlightenment of the collapse of Xi'an's "one code pass" is to improve the vertical overall planning and horizontal linkage capabilities of the city's digital operation, and give full play to the institutional advantages of China's large number of people and concentrated efforts to do big things. For example, when the support of information infrastructure in a place is insufficient, a promotion support mechanism can be established to enable the central and higher-level departments to coordinate regional or national resources for assistance.
At the same time, it is also possible to establish a horizontal linkage mechanism across regions or urban agglomerations, coordinate the computing power of other regions to "rush to the aid" of the disaster-stricken areas, and realize the linkage and mutual assistance between various regions.
Digital technology is a means, not an end, to prevent the epidemic
The health code brings convenience to the prevention and control of the epidemic, but once the health code fails, it will make it difficult for people to move forward, making the epidemic prevention work passive. We need to recognize that digital technology is a means rather than an end in preventing the epidemic, and we must avoid mistaking the means for an end. Otherwise, superstitious technical determinism and falling into technical blindfolds may make the city digital epidemic prevention inverted and lose its original meaning.
This means that all localities must have the foresight of "ten defenses and nine voids" when preventing the epidemic, and even when the worst is expected to happen, they can also cope with it easily by switching between online and offline.
The information barriers brought by the health code to the elderly and the disabled also put forward requirements for the online and offline conversion of epidemic prevention and control. For example, some cities provide terminal devices that can read ID card information, and do not require people to scan and verify. This not only achieves the information accessibility of the health code, but also avoids the impact of a large number of visits on the technology platform.
The big data management bureaus established in various places often set up big data centers with the attributes of public institutions, and the enterprises complete technical preparation and operation and maintenance guarantees through procurement or outsourcing. Since 2020, Xi'an has adopted a single-source procurement method and entrusted China Telecom Xi'an Branch to develop an epidemic prevention and control information platform to enhance digital epidemic prevention capabilities.
It is worth noting that this usually makes the big data management bureau develop the habit of "throwing hands and palms", handing over the whole to the enterprise to provide technical support, and many things are decided by the enterprise, which buries hidden dangers.
For example, whether the technical solutions provided by subcontracting subcontracting enterprises can be supported requires the relevant departments to evaluate and review them from time to time, so as to avoid the possible tail of "kidnapping" by enterprises.
Contributing Writer | MA Liang (Research Fellow, National Institute of Development and Strategic Studies, Chinese Min University, Professor, School of Public Administration)
Edit | Xu Qiuying
Intern | Velyuil
Proofreading | Wang Xin