Hong Kong protesters and police engage in digital arms race

Both protesters and police during the 2019 Hong Kong protests used technical tools including facial recognition to counter each other's tactics. Police tracked protest leaders online and sought to gain access to their phones on a set of Telegram channels. When police stopped wearing identification badges, protesters began to expose their identities online on another. The removal of identification badges has led many to suspect that surveillance techniques are being brought in from mainland China, where facial recognition, a vast network of cameras, and other tracking tools have combined to build one of the world's most invasive surveillance systems.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/technology/hong-kong-protests-facial-recognition-surveillance.html

Writer: Paul Mozur

Publication: New York Times