China’s Great Firewall looms over Hong Kong as surveillance grows

An unchecked Internet benefits businesses and finance professionals using social media as much as it does activists organising protests. Pic: A vigil on June 15 in Hong Kong for a protester who fell to his death during protest a year ago. — Reuters

Hong Kong, already grappling with tightened policing to rein in widespread protests that followed last year's proposed extradition bill, is now bracing for the prospect of stricter digital controls – ones that would curtail free speech, communications and the ability to organise and turn the city of 7 million into a surveillance state that more closely resembles China.

In recent years, law enforcement has deployed tens of thousands of closed-circuit television cameras in Hong Kong’s streets and shopping malls, used broad warrants to crack into the mobile phones of protesters, and deployed facial recognition software that can identify activists in massive crowds.