#PoliceState #AsiasFinest
Hong Kong Research Institute Demands Police to Return Data: Police are “Scarier than thieves”
During the mass arrest of 55 pro-democracy activists for their involvement in the primary election, the Hong Kong police also took away computers and servers from the office of Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (#PORI) located in Wan Chai and Wong Chuk Hang.
The PORI provided technical support during the primary election in July 2019. The president of PORI, Dr. Robert Chung Yiu Ting, said their lawyer issued a letter to the Secretary for Justice, demanding the police to respect academic freedom and researchers’ dignity and return data that is unrelated to the case.
Chung said, the data that was taken away by the police has nothing to do with the primary election. One of the items taken away was a large scale database which stored a large amount of data set that would be crucial for long term data analysis.
Chung anticipated that “the police would probably say they do not know which data is related and which is not related to the election”, and therefore asked the police to return a copy of the data so that they can maintain their research at the Institute; otherwise it would be hard for one to not think that the police are being “malicious”.
Chung also said he was aware of the citizens’ concerns towards the safety of the data storage. Although the PORI has already enhanced its security system to prevent any hacking, they still cannot prevent the data from being collected by someone with public authority.
“You can prevent thieves by closing all windows, but you still cannot stop the police from entering your house”. Dr. Kenneth Chan Ka Lok, in political science at the Baptist University, described the police as “scarier than thieves”.
Source: InMedia #Jan13
https://bit.ly/2LqwAwD
#Thief #Privacy #Data
Hong Kong Research Institute Demands Police to Return Data: Police are “Scarier than thieves”
During the mass arrest of 55 pro-democracy activists for their involvement in the primary election, the Hong Kong police also took away computers and servers from the office of Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (#PORI) located in Wan Chai and Wong Chuk Hang.
The PORI provided technical support during the primary election in July 2019. The president of PORI, Dr. Robert Chung Yiu Ting, said their lawyer issued a letter to the Secretary for Justice, demanding the police to respect academic freedom and researchers’ dignity and return data that is unrelated to the case.
Chung said, the data that was taken away by the police has nothing to do with the primary election. One of the items taken away was a large scale database which stored a large amount of data set that would be crucial for long term data analysis.
Chung anticipated that “the police would probably say they do not know which data is related and which is not related to the election”, and therefore asked the police to return a copy of the data so that they can maintain their research at the Institute; otherwise it would be hard for one to not think that the police are being “malicious”.
Chung also said he was aware of the citizens’ concerns towards the safety of the data storage. Although the PORI has already enhanced its security system to prevent any hacking, they still cannot prevent the data from being collected by someone with public authority.
“You can prevent thieves by closing all windows, but you still cannot stop the police from entering your house”. Dr. Kenneth Chan Ka Lok, in political science at the Baptist University, described the police as “scarier than thieves”.
Source: InMedia #Jan13
https://bit.ly/2LqwAwD
#Thief #Privacy #Data