As a key constituent of China’s approach to fighting COVID-19, Health Code apps (HCAs) not only serve the pandemic control imperatives but also exercise the agency of digital surveillance. As such, HCAs pave a new avenue for ongoing discussions on contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. This article attends to the privacy perception among HCA users via the lens of the contextual integrity theory. Drawing on an online survey of adult health code apps users in Wuhan and Hangzhou (N=1551), we find users’ perceived convenience, attention towards privacy policy, trust in government, and acceptance of government purposes regarding HCA data management are significant contributors to users’ perceived privacy protection in using HCAs. By contrast, users’ frequency of mobile privacy protection behaviors has limited influence and their degrees of perceived protection do not vary by sociodemographic status. These findings have significant policy and practical implications for countries other than China to implement effective pandemic control measures and strengthen public health surveillance systems.