Beijing’s electronic dragnet closes on Hong Kong
To get onto his Facebook account, police used Tony Chung’s body.
When officers swarmed him at a Hong Kong shopping mall last month, they pulled him into a stairwell and pinned his head in front of his phone — an attempt to trigger the facial recognition system. Later, at his home, officers forced his finger onto a separate phone. Then they demanded passwords.
“They said, ‘ Do you know with the national security law, we have all the rights to unlock your phones and get your passwords?’ ” Chung recalled.
Emboldened by that new law, Hong Kong security forces are turning to harsher tactics as they close a digital dragnet on activists, pro- democracy politicians and media leaders. Their approaches — which in the past month have included installing a camera outside the home of a prominent politician and breaking into the Facebook account of another — bear marked similarities to those long used by the fearsome domestic security forces in mainland China.
Not accustomed to such pressures, Hong Kong lawmakers and activists, and the U. S. companies that own the most popular
internet services there, have struggled to respond. Prodemocracy politicians have issued instructions to supporters on how to secure digital devices.
Dogged by the global reach of the law, even people from Hong Kong living far away from the city worry. One Facebook discussion group of Hong Kongers living in Australia closed off public access after a user claimed to have reported discussions to Hong Kong authorities for potentially violating the law.
Major internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter have temporarily cut off data sharing with local police. Others have gone further, devising more permanent solutions. In July, Yahoo changed its terms of service so that users in Hong Kong are protected under U. S. law, not local rules. It also cut access for employees in Hong Kong to user data to protect them from the law, according to two people familiar with the matter.
“With China’s rising influence and power, it’s not safe for technology companies to put their servers in China or Hong Kong now,” said Joshua Wong, a prominent activist. “It’s important for them to help support Hong Kong’s citizens and society with digital security.”
The first coordinated sting under the new security law made
Chung an example of an offense new to Hong Kong but common in mainland China: an internet crime. Police accused him of writing a post calling for Hong Kong independence on the Facebook page of a newly formed political party and demanded he delete it. He denied writing it.
Enforcing internet laws meant gathering digital evidence, and police pushed hard to gain access to Chung’s accounts. Though less than fully prepared for the arrest, Chung said, he was able to foil officers at each turn. In the stairwell when police forced his head in front of his phone, he closed his eyes and scrunched his face, rendering useless his iPhone’s facial recognition software. He had long since disabled the fingerprint unlock on his other phone.
Even so, a few hours after he was detained, his friends noticed that his Facebook account was active, appearing as if he were online and using it. Chung believes that the security forces broke in, although he said he was not sure how.