In an attempt to help preventing and controlling China’s epidemic situation, the three telecom operators have enabled the “roaming location inquiry” service. It offers a quick access for users to prove their recent traveling history as well as an efficient approach for local government to verify the travelling information of recurrent population in the area. With information safety ensured, this new initiative is a public service for cellphone users, relying on the operators’ big data capacities.
The three operators share a similar inquiry method. Basically, by sending a SMS message to the operator designated service number to authorize the process, users will receive the recent 15/30 days national/global roaming location information from the system. It is worth noting that the roaming location information contains only the cities and places, without revealing the users’ exact location and time of sojourn.