As COVID-19 rips through China, other countries and the World Health Organization are calling on its government to share more comprehensive data on the outbreak. Some even say many of the numbers it's reporting are meaningless. Without basic data like the number of deaths, infections and severe cases, governments elsewhere have instituted virus testing requirements for travelers from China. Beijing has said the measures aren't science-based and threatened countermeasures. Of greatest concern is whether new variants will emerge from the mass infection unfolding in China and spread to other countries. The delta and omicron variants developed in places that also had large outbreaks, which can be a breeding ground for new variants. Read More: WHO 'continues to urge' China to share more data amid Covid surge Here's a look at what's going on with China's COVID-19 data: WHAT IS CHINA SHARING AND NOT SHARING? Chinese health authorities publish a daily count of new cases, severe cases and deaths, but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and use a very narrow definition of COVID-related deaths. China is most certainly doing their own sampling studies but just not sharing them, said Ray Yip, who founded the U.S. Centers for Disease Control office in China. The nationwide tally for Thursday was 9,548 new cases and five deaths, but some local governments are releasing much higher estimates just for their jurisdictions. Zhejiang, a province on the east coast, said Tuesday it was seeing about 1 million new cases a day. If a variant emerges in an outbreak, it's found through genetic sequencing of the virus. Since the pandemic started, China has shared 4,144 sequences with GISAID, a global platform for coronavirus data. That's only 0.04% of its reported number of cases — a rate more than 100 times less than the United States and nearly four times less than neighboring Mongolia. Read more: Beijing threatens response to ‘unacceptable’ virus measures WHAT IS KNOWN AND WHAT CAN BE FIGURED OUT? So far, no new variants have shown up in the sequences shared by China. The versions fueling infections in China “closely resemble” those that have been seen in other parts of the world since July, GISAID said. Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College of Vellore in India, agreed, saying there wasn’t anything particularly worrisome in the data so far. That hasn't stopped at least 10 countries — including the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, the U.K., France, Spain and Italy — from announcing virus testing requirements for passengers from China. The European Union strongly encouraged all its member states to do so this week. Health officials have defended the testing as a surveillance measure that helps fill an information gap from China. This means countries can get a read on any changes in the virus through testing, even if they don’t have complete data from China. “We don’t need China to study that, all we have to do is to test all the people coming out of China,” said Yip, the former public health official. Canada and Belgium said they will look for viral particles in wastewater on planes arriving from China. “It is like an early warning system for authorities to anticipate whether there’s a surge of infections coming in,” said Dr. Khoo Yoong Khean, a scientific officer at the Duke-NUS Centre for Outbreak Preparedness in Singapore. Read More: EU, Beijing heading for collision over China’s COVID crisis IS CHINA SHARING ENOUGH INFORMATION? Chinese officials have repeatedly said they are sharing information, pointing to the sequences given to GISAID and meetings with the WHO. But WHO officials have repeatedly asked for more — not just on genetic sequencing but also on hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern this week about the risk to life in China. “Data remains essential for WHO to carry out regular, rapid and robust risk assessments of the global situation,” the head of the U.N. health agency said. The Chinese government often holds information from its own public, particularly anything that reflects negatively on the ruling Communist Party. State media have shied away from the dire reports of a spike in cremations and people racing from hospital to hospital to try to get treatment as the health system reaches capacity. Government officials have accused foreign media of hyping the situation. Khoo, noting that South Africa’s early warning about omicron led to bans on travelers from the country, said there is a need to foster an environment where countries can share data without fear of repercussions. Read More: Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has raised questions over the legality of announcing ‘29 organizations’ as ‘critical information infrastructure’ under the jurisdiction of section 15 of ‘Digital Security Act (DSA)-2018’.  The TIB, better known as a civil society organization dedicated to fighting against corruption, made the statement in a press release signed by its Director Sheikh Manjur-E-Alam on Tuesday. The TIB came up with the remarks two days after the government announced 29 organizations such as the Prime Minister's Office, central and state-owned banks, and the national identity and immigration departments as "critical information infrastructure", officially declaring illegal access to their information as punishable offence. Claiming the list of the 29 organizations as questionable and misleading, the TIB said the list gave birth to some basic questions after being made public despite no support from state policy. Read: Keep civil society, media people in DSA amendment process: TIB TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said the government has been empowered with announcement of any computer system, network or information infrastructure as critical information infrastructure, according to DSA-2018. “However, it is not clear in which standard the list of the 29 organizations was announced without including critical ministries like Defense, Home and Armed Forces,” he said.  Terming the list as imprudent, he said national parliament, judicial department, audit, health sector, customs and ports were not included in the list.     Iftekharuzzaman said the first and foremost duty of the country is now to formulate state and public security act. The DSA will be used wrongly in future unless there is specific policy, he said. Besides, a barrier will be created in collecting information from the enlisted 29 organizations under section 16 (3) of the DSA, the TIB executive director suspected. The TIB hoped that the government will take initiative to amend the DSA to stop its misuse and ensure its effectiveness soon. However, the anti-corruption watchdog did not mention the names of the enlisted 29 organizations in their release.   

To ensure that the smartphone users enjoy the highest level of reliability and trustworthiness, smart device brand Oppo has set up a personal data security department and employed a data protection officer globally to guard the process and ensure the security of personal data. All Oppo products and services have been designed to guard the personal information of the users. Read Oppo joins Connectivity Standards Alliance's board of directors The brand is continuously upgrading its security system so that users can feel safe. It has made a change to its recently-launched A16 where the app hiding option is no longer a sub-feature of app lock. It is now an option on the same setting page with app lock. Also, the brand adheres to the general data protection regulation to protect users' privacy. It has put in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect users' data. Read OPPO ColorOS 12: What’s New About It? Oppo has an Android OS customised ColorOS system optimiser and Avast-powered antivirus to protect viruses and malware so that the data stores in the users' phones are not compromised due to unwanted attacks, according to a media statement.

The Bankers’ Book Evidence Bill 2021, defining the digitally recorded documents as such evidence under the proposed law, was placed in Parliament on Monday. Though there is already a law to deal with it, the draft of the new law was brought to incorporate digitally-recorded evidence in it. Read:Bill placed in JS with provision of archiving all records Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the Bill in the House and it was sent to the respective Parliamentary Standing Committee for further scrutiny. The Committee was asked to submit its report within one month. The proposed law is going to replace the old Bankers’ Book Evidence Act 1891 as many things in the current law are not consistent with the present-day situation. Besides, the banks are now working digitally which was not mentioned in the previous law and the draft law has stated it clearly. Read: Cabinet approves draft Finance Company Bill The proposed law has suggested making information public except those of private one after taking permission from the court and fixing the authorities who can do that. The new law also states some offences, punishments and trial to prevent unauthorised and the behind-scene leak of any information. The proposed law defines the jurisdiction of the court for any bank-related information, which is totally prohibited in the old one. Read:40 collect AL nomination papers for JS by-elections Some of the information have been opened up in the new law, axing the privileged and personal information, which will be authorised to publish the information.

Right to Information Forum Bangladesh on Sunday called upon the government to accelerate actions at every level involving all stakeholders to fulfill the true spirit of the RTI Act 2009 and improving governance in the country.