Hong Kong's protesters find ways to outwit the surveillance state
Hong Kong's protesters find ways to outwit the
surveillance state
Shibani Mahtani, The Washington Post Published 6:13 pm
CDT, Saturday, June 15, 2019
HONG KONG - The moment the 25-year-old protester got home
from demonstrations that turned violent - tear gas still stinging her eyes -
she knew what she had to do: delete all of her Chinese phone apps.
WeChat was gone. So was Alipay and the shopping app Taobao.
She then installed a virtual private network on her smartphone to use with the
secure messaging app Telegram in an attempt to stay hidden from cyber-monitors.
"I'm just doing anything" to stay ahead of
police surveillance and hide her identity, said the protester. She asked to be
referred only by her first name, Alexa, to avoid drawing the attention of
authorities amid the most serious groundswell against Chinese-directed rule in
Hong Kong since 2014.
Protests that expanded over the past week against a bill
allowing extraditions to mainland China were marked by something unprecedented:
A coordinated effort by demonstrators to leave no trace for authorities and
their enhanced tracking systems.
Protesters used only secure digital messaging apps such as
Telegram, and otherwise went completely analogue in their movements: buying
single ride subway tickets instead of prepaid stored value cards, forgoing
credit cards and mobile payments in favor of cash, and taking no selfies or
photos of the chaos.
They wore face masks to obscure themselves from CCTVs and
in fear of facial recognition software, and bought fresh pay-as-you-go SIM
cards.
And, unlike the pro-democracy movement in 2014, the
latest demonstrations also have remained intentionally leaderless in another
attempt to frustrate police, who have used tear gas and rubber bullets against
the crowds.
On Saturday, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam
announced the postponement of the extradition bill, saying she hoped to return
peace to the streets of the city. But the measure was not fully withdrawn and
Lam still expressed support.
Protesters, meanwhile, have called for another major show
of defiance on the streets on Sunday.
Amid the chaos, Hong Kong has offered a picture of what
it looks like to stage mass civil disobedience in the age of the surveillance
state.
"The Chinese government will do a lot of things to
try to monitor their own people," said Bonnie Leung, a leader of the Hong
Kong-based Civil Human Rights Front.
Leung cited media coverage of Chinese use of artificial
intelligence to track individuals and its social credit score system.
"We believe that could happen to Hong Kong,
too," she said.
The core of the protests is over the belief that Beijing
- which was handed back control of the former British colony more than 20 years
ago - is increasingly stripping Hong Kong of its cherished freedoms and
autonomy.
But the identity-masking efforts by the protesters also
reflects deep suspicions that lines between China and Hong Kong no longer exist
- including close cooperation between Hong Kong police and their mainland
counterparts who have among the most advanced and intrusive surveillance
systems.
"It is the fundamental reason people are protesting
in the first place," said Antony Dapiran, who wrote a book on protest
culture in Hong Kong. "They don't trust Beijing, they don't trust their authorities
and the legal system, and they don't like the blurring of lines between Beijing
and Hong Kong."
For many who had taken to the streets over the past week,
the fight was a familiar one.
In 2014, protesters occupied Hong Kong's main arteries
for 79 days demanding full universal suffrage in the territory. Prominent
student leaders and activists marshaled up support night after night in mini
cities that had been set up on Hong Kong's thoroughfares, until they were
eventually cleared out by police.
Today, all of the most prominent leaders of that movement
- Joshua Wong, only a teenager at the time of the protests, legal scholar Benny
Tai and Chan Kin-man, a sociology professor - are in jail.
The masses gathered around government buildings this week
were without clear leaders. Demonstrators shared protest tips and security
measures with people they had met just hours before to avoid a similar fate.
Meetups were primarily planned on Telegram, which became the top trending app
on the iPhone app store in Hong Kong in the days leading up to the protest.
"Information on personal safety was passed around on
Telegram channels and group chats," said Caden, a 21 year-old Hong Kong
student in Indiana who returned home early to participate. When he among
estimated 1 million marching on June 7 to begin the protest movement.
On the group groups, Caden received a barrage of advice
which included changing your username on Telegram so it sounds nothing like
your actual name, changing your phone number associated with app and using SIM
cards without a contract.
"We are much more cautious now for sure than in
2014. Back then, it was still kind of rare for the police to arrest people
through social media," Caden said, declining to give his full name for
fear of retribution. "All of this is definitely new for most people there."
Alexa noticed messages on Facebook, used by an older
generation of Hong Kongers, warning people to mask their digital footprints and
go cashless.
"People keep telling each other not to take pictures
during the protest, and only to take wide shots without people's faces on
them," she said.
It marked a huge change in sentiment for her, someone who
had been attending peaceful demonstrations in Hong Kong with her family for
years.
"We'd always take pictures and upload them to
Facebook and so on, it would tell people you are there at the scene," she
said. "But by now, everyone [has] equated the bill to cracking down on the
Hong Kong legal system. We are all afraid that it won't exist anymore."
Hours before Wednesday's occupation of Hong Kong roads,
Hong Kong police arrested Ivan Ip, a coordinator of a Telegram group with
thousands of people, in his home. He is currently out on bail.
Telegram also reported a massive cyberattack, which the
company said likely originated from China and were timed with the protest.
Samantha Hoffman, a fellow at the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute's Cyber Center, said data collection methods used in China
have specifically been designed to intimidate people from taking part in
demonstrations. She described the strategy as "killing the root before the
weed can grow."
"It's a form of preemptive security," she said
Still, researchers say it has been difficult to figure
out the extent to which Hong Kong Police Force cooperates with the mainland on
surveillance technology and tools.
The Hong Kong force says it sends around 150 officials
every year for "ideological and practical" training at elite mainland
police academies. A larger number also receive regular training in
"hand-to-hand combat, interrogation skills, criminal investigation and gun
use," according to news releases from the Chinese government.
And when a high speed rail link opened connecting Beijing
to Hong Kong, Chinese police were allowed to enforce mainland laws in the rail
terminus. The rail link opened last year, marking the first time mainland
police were allowed to patrol Hong Kong as part of joint immigration checks.
Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights
Watch, said there is "very little transparency" about the cooperation
between Hong Kong police and mainland authorities.
Wang also noted that Hong Kong is moving ahead with plans
for more "smart city" initiatives - with little clarity on which
companies would be assisting them in that task.
"People are concerned that their electronic traces
can be collected and monitored as the city becomes more digitized," she
said. "What about the Chinese companies that are assisting or involved
with the collection of data in Hong Kong? Would they be passing that data
back?"
Alexa, Caden and other protesters interviewed by The
Washington Post say they remain undeterred and will continue to show up at
demonstrations. They have masks and goggles prepared, they say, both as a
shield against police tactics like pepper spray and also to avoid potential
facial recognition or other surveillance software.
"I do not think this is overly cautious. If we read
books by George Orwell and we read histories about Communist Parties, of course
this is not overly cautious," said Leung of CHRF.
"If I was not some sort of leader or coordinator of
the Civil Human Rights Front, I may wear a face mask as well," she added.
"I can totally understand why people would want to hide their
identities."
The Washington Post's Timothy McLaughlin in Hong Kong and
Lyric Li in Beijing contributed to this report.
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