In China, even creating a pollution tracking app is a risky business

China’s pollution is a sensitive issue – not just in the way it inflames your throat and nostrils after a commute through a toxic smog. The pollution highlights how normal people are paying the price of development that’s fueling a boom in billionaires; the choking haze is linked to the premature deaths of 1.2 million people in China in 2010, according to figures from the Global Burden of Disease Study.

A new mobile app popped up in 2011 that wanted to make it easier for Chinese people to gauge just how bad the pollution is in their city. It also allowed for easy sharing of pollution index data through social networks like Weibo. It was initially called DirtyBeijing, but later changed its name to China Air Quality Index. Zhang Bin, the co-founder of the startup behind the app, explains to Tech in Asia:

It was mid-October 2011, and the air quality in Beijing was quite bad, as you may imagine. It came to my mind that if we could check the air quality on our phones and receive pollution notifications, that would be quite helpful and handy. After some research on the App Store, it turned out that all existing apps about air quality – in fact, there were not so many as that time – were ugly or poorly functioning.

We believed we can make a better one, so we spent two weeks’ leisure time – we had not quit our jobs yet – to build our first version, and that was how it began.

That was around the time Beijing’s air got drastically and noticeably bad, to the extent that the hills outside of the city became a distant memory to its residents. Barely being able to see the next few blocks was quickly becoming the new norm.

At that time, too, a new phrase came to the attention of China’s web users – “PM2.5.” That’s the measure of especially small particulate matter that’s less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Those are believed to cause more damage to urbanites’ lungs than the larger pollutants that are indexed by the older measurement system used by China’s municipal governments.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began giving real-time PM2.5 updates in Beijing towards the end of 2011. The contrast to the authorities’ numbers was alarming. On one day in November 2011, we noted that the China National Environmental Monitoring Center page for Beijing gave an “air pollution index” of 27, which was rated as “excellent”; however, the EPA PM2.5 metric was 125, which was classified as “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” China’s netizens realized that the PM2.5 read-out was the real deal.

“At first we did not anticipate a large audience for this project, and we did not conduct any marketing,” continues Zhang. “But in early December 2011, when Beijing encountered air pollution again, we noticed a spike in downloads. The main factor contributing to this growth was that our users posted screenshots on Weibo voluntarily, including those who had plenty of followers like Yao Chen [an actress who, at the time, was the most followed person on Weibo], therefore more people started to download our app. After that, we received piles of user feedback email, which encouraged us to make this app better.”

Unhealthy

The rift in reporting between the data from the EPA and China continues to this day. In Shanghai today, the US consulate’s read-out for AQI is 153 (“unhealthy”) on a scale of 500, while the China MEP index is 78 (“good”). The app contains both indices, which users can flip between.

Looking through the historical data for Beijing in the China Air Quality Index app, Beijing’s one-year average AQI rating is 124. That’s not good. China’s worst city in terms of constant pollution is Xingtai, in Hebei province, with an annual average code-red of 187. If you’re in that city, the app recommends you wear a mask, not open windows, don’t do outdoor sports, and avoid taking children or elderly people outdoors. Presumably, all year round. Xingtai is even worse than average today, posting an AQI of 207 at the time of writing this.

While authorities in China are now more transparent in reporting AQI and PM2.5 than in previous years, the situation took a step backward earlier this month as world leaders descended on Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). As Beijing shut down factories weeks in advance to clear the air for the visiting dignitaries, including Barack Obama, the capital’s air cleared and locals marveled at a rare sight – a crisp blue sky. Some of China’s more mischievous web users dubbed it “APEC blue.” But it also stirred resentment that the locals are not worthy of clean-up measures. Then, authorities put pressure on the US embassy to withhold the EPA data for Beijing, resulting in the most trusted read-out for the capital in the China Air Quality Index app going blank.

Zhang and the team have since replaced the blank space with the notice (pictured below): “Data from this source was censored on the orders from government.”

Stressing that he’s no environmental expert, Zhang says he believes the pollution is not get any worse these days. “From my perspective, I don’t see significant change in data during the past three years. I think the reason why people feel ‘Oh the air quality is getting worse than in the old days’ might be that they are paying more and more attention to this topic than before.”

See: For smoggy China, Vogmask makes stylish pollution masks that are fit for the catwalk

Global index

Zhang’s startup is Fresh Ideas, which is mostly based around the popular China Air Quality Index app. The app, available for iOS and Android, has so far seen over five million downloads and has about 300,000 daily active users. Roughly 40 percent of those users are in Beijing, which is the most high profile victim of recurring smog; 20 percent of the app’s user base is in Shanghai.

Realizing that this kind of data is a sensitive topic, Zhang and the team keep a low profile, preferring not to appear in photos in this article.

He and co-founder Wang Jun left jobs at Baidu, China’s top search engine, to build up the startup. The team hasn’t taken funding, despite interest from investors, and has instead “decided to be independent.”

The startup is working on a global air quality app that will come out by the end of the year.

China Air Quality Index is available for free on iOS or Android. A US$0.99 in-app purchase removes the adverts.

This post In China, even creating a pollution tracking app is a risky business appeared first on Tech in Asia.

In China, even creating a pollution tracking app is a risky business