📡Guardians of Hong Kong
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We provide translation of news in English from local media and other sources, for academic use.
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#FreeAgnes #RealMulan
Police Surround Agnes Chow and District Councillor's Anti-Health Code Booth

On the evening of Sept 7, 2020, Agnes Chow, former vice-secretary-general of Demosistõ and Yau Tsim Mong District Councillor Ho Fu-wing set up a street booth in Jordan, expressing their opposition to the government's implementation of health code.

This has attracted police attention. Chow and Ho were encircled by the police and everyone at the booth was ticketed for "violating the gathering ban".

In August, police arrested Chow for "breaching the national security law". Chow has to report to the police again on Dec 2, one day before her birthday. Chow had mentioned earlier that her only wish is to be able to return home and spend her 24th birthday at home.

Source: Stand News #Sept7
https://www.facebook.com/710476795704610/posts/3435399803212282/

#599GTicket #HealthCode #MassSurveillance #BigData

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I wish to spend my next #birthday at home: Agnes Chow
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1547305-20
#MassSurveillance
Urban Renewal Authority in Hong Kong Launches #HealthCode on Staff

Source: Apple Daily #Oct25

Read more
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#MassSurveillance
Urban Renewal Authority in Hong Kong Launches #HealthCode on Staff

The Urban Renewal Authority (#URA) began a trial program of monitoring staff members’ whereabouts using the Health Code.

Wai Chi-Sing, Managing Director of the Bureau, revealed on his blog that their Population Census workers must install the “Infection Risk Reminder” application on their phone, and must put on electronic wristbands.

The application would warn them of entering premises with the risk of infection. When conducting home visits, they would display information on the app to the households, including their COVID-19 test results.

Wai explained that since the operation of the app on 9th October, 2020 about 110 staff members had installed, and more than 350 reminders had been issued. While some workers mocked the app and called it “URA’s health Code”, Wai stressed that the Bureau was developing a newer version, which allowed daily use and would “be available according to staff members’ will and need” by the end of November. Wai said that the itinerary recorded by the app would only be stored on individual phones, but not being sent to a central data base.

Source: Apple Daily #Oct25
#BigData
#FailedState #CoronavirusPandemic
Control and Tightening Control: HK Government's Latest Responses to the Pandemic

The Hong Kong SAR government refused to grant HKD1.5m to a community cleanliness campaign approved by Southern District Council for anti-pandemic purpose.

This is not the first time where the government refused to operate with the directly-elected district councillors, of which the pro-democracy camp constitutes the majority in all 18 District Councils in Hong Kong.

Read more:
https://bit.ly/2K0nAgZ

Meanwhile, the government claimed the need to "tighten anti-pandemic control". The Health Authority required travellers arriving in Hong Kong to undergo quarantine in hotels, i.e. home quarantine is not allowed. The regulation, however, exempts travellers arriving from China.

Read more:
https://bit.ly/2GO9ZrC

The Hong Kong government will release an mobile application to monitor citizens' travel records on Nov 16, 2020. The government claims that data such as personal information and GPS location would not be collected, and privacy would be respected. Citizens can voluntarily download and use the app.

The development of the app had cost HKD 1m.

The HK government also mentioned a plan to exempt Hong Kong residents in China from the 14-day compulsory quarantine when returning to Hong Kong, starting from Nov 23, 2020.

Read more:
https://bit.ly/32Af6U9

Source: InMedia #Nov11

Image: Stand News

#DistrictCouncil #Discriminatiom #HealthCode #Quarantine
#MassSurveillance #ChineseCharacteristics #CCPControl
Chinese Communist Party leader Urges the World to Implement Controversial #HealthCode

According to China state broadcaster, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping called on the world during the G20 summit for the implementation of a health code.

In Hong Kong alone, the Health Code proposal has sparked controversy for its potential infringement of privacy and freedom and issues with the collection and the storage of personal data by the authorities.

On November 19, 2020, Xi also said at the Apec CEO Dialogues that China must rely on a growth model driven by innovation while continuing to deepen so-called supply-side reforms.

Xi also said globalisation is "irreversible" and that China will not engage in "de-coupling".

Throughout 2020, China has come under criticism, particularly from the US, for the coronavirus outbreak.

Source: RTHK #Nov19
#WuhanPneumonia
#MassSurveillance #BigBrother
Covid-19: China pushes for QR Code based global travel system

In the G20 summit, Xi Jinping pushed QR codes which could be used to recognize “health certificates based on nucleic acid test result.

Human Rights advocates want that the codes could be used for “broader political monitoring and exclusion”. And the codes are based on a combination of big data and information submitted by the users themselves.

Chinese QR codes was developed by financial technology giant Ant Financial, and is available through its main app Alipay, but also on WeChat, which belongs to Alipay’s competitor Tencent.

Source: BBC #Nov23

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55039662

#China #G20Summit #QRcode #Covid19 #HealthCode #Privacy #BigData
Xi Jinping Advocates “Internationally Accepted QR Codes” to Track Global Population

Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the G20 Leaders’ Summit via video conference on Saturday (Nov 21), during which he expressed his wish for more countries to participate in an international mutual recognized mechanism for health codes proposed by China, in order to rapidly track international travels and movements of personnel during the pandemic.

Xi proposed that all countries should formulate a universal set of policies and standards to counter the pandemic, enhance the relationship between policies and standards, and establish “fast tracks” to facilitate the flow of personnel, to ensure the smooth operation of the global economy amid the pandemic. Xi proposed that the mechanism was based on nucleic acid test results and administered through internationally accepted QR codes, and expressed his hope for more countries to participate. He did not, however, specify the types of applications or QR code systems, or who to design and manage the system.

China has widely implemented health certificates locally using QR codes that also contain personal travel and health records. The codes were deemed effective in curbing the spread of COVID-19 in mainland China. The code system assigns different colour codes to users based on their risks of potential infection: Green denotes the lowest risk, followed by yellow, with red denoting the highest risk.

#China #CCP #XiJinping #Xi #G20 #G20LeadersSummit #LeadersSummit #healthcode #UN #QRCode #nucleicacidtest

Source: Stand News #Nov24

https://bit.ly/37CdaMv
WeChat Becomes a Powerful Surveillance Tool Everywhere in China

WeChat has become one of the most powerful tools in Beijing’s arsenal for monitoring the public, censoring speech and punishing people who voice discontent with the government. Its dominance in Chinese society has become more entrenched in 2020 due to remote working and learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Tencent and Alibaba developed health-rating systems for government as one of the main contact-tracing tools to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The health codes embedded within WeChat and Alipay have become essential passes in China for entering residences, office buildings and accessing public transportation.

WeChat uses client-to-server encryption, which grants Tencent full access to data between senders and recipients, as opposed to end-to-end encryption, said Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank created by the Australian government.

China’s internet firewall has long blocked foreign sites and messaging apps, including Google, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook, but these can be accessed via virtual private networks (VPN).

“Some of my friends and clients switch to Signal or FaceTime for sensitive conversations. Still, for the majority of people, they don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to get over the firewall for daily communications,” said Zhang Qingfang, a Beijing-based human-rights lawyer.

Source: WSJ #Dec22

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wechat-becomes-a-powerful-surveillance-tool-everywhere-in-china-11608633003

#HealthCode #WeChat #Tencent #Alibaba #Censorship
#MassSurveillance
CCP Uses Health Code as a Surveillance Tool - Dissidents Query

Epidemic prevention has given the Chinese Communist Party (#CCP) an easy excuse to impose #HealthCode in Chinese cities.

In recent days, the health codes of a number of social activists in China have been switched to red or experienced unusual app errors for no apparent reasons. They question whether the Health code has become a tool for CCP to tighten their fist over dissidents, curbing their freedom to travel and move around cities.

#XiYan, one of the civil rights lawyers involved in the 709 crackdowns, wanted to visit the mother of Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist and a former lawyer in Shanghai.

Ignoring local police's disapproval, Xi went ahead with his plan, only to find that his health code switched to red.

Xi shared a photograph of himself in the airport and his health code in red on social media.

#WangYu, another human rights lawyer, posted on Twitter on November 7 that she was strained in Tianjin as she failed to update her health code on her way back to Beijing.

Wang's husband, #BaoLongJun who is also a human rights lawyer, also could not generate a health code on his phone on his way from Suzhou back to Beijing.

Source: Stand news; #Nov7 https://thestandnews.page.link/QTWPSNx4Xn6KFAjx5

#HumanRights #CivilRightLawyer #CitizenJournalist
Hong Kong Health Code has starts registration on Dec 10, 2021. Yet, it requires personal information as well as the LeaveHomeSafe records.

#HealthCode #LeaveHomeSafe #COVID19 #GoHKgraphics
#SurveillanceState
HK Authorities Propose Real Name Registration and
#HealthCode System like China's

Source: InMediaHK.net #Jul11

Read more
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#SurveillanceState
HK Authorities Propose Real Name Registration and #HealthCode System like China's

Hong Kong's Secretary for Heath #LoChungMau said on July 11, 2022 that the government had plans to introduce a three-colour ‘health code’ system in the city, bringing the app in line with China's system.

It would be an additional function to #LeaveHomeSafe, the government's COVID contact-tracing app. Lo mentioned that reference was sought from the health code systems used China. He also claimed that it was important to implement real name registration.

[Editor's note: Since the LeaveHomeSafe app has been made compulsory by the authorities in Hong Kong, many citizens expressed concerns over its privacy issues. The health code system in China has been long regarded as a #MassSurveillance campaign of the #ChineseCommunistParty government.]

Source: InMediaHK.net #Jul11
https://bit.ly/3aqHE9C

see also:
LeaveHomeSafe app has built-in facial detection module, Hong Kong government admits
https://t.me/BeWaterHK/478

Down with the live-with-COVID believers (Satire)
https://t.me/BeWaterHK/148

#PrivacyBreach #Freedom #Authoritarianism
Thousands in Henan protested banks for witholding their money, resulting in large scale police and public confrontation

The frozen deposits situation at banks in #Henan Province has not eased. In the early morning of Sunday (10 July), thousands of bank account holders, unable to withdraw their deposits, gathered and protested at Zhengzhou People's Bank.

Online videos showed protesters holding up banners demanding the bank to return their deposits. Police and a large number of unidentified men arrived at the scene, to whom protesters chanted "triads". Efforts to disperse the crowd turned into violent clashes, and many were injured.

Four rural banks in Henan Province began to close their online withdrawal and transfer channels in April, affecting more than 400,000 people, involving deposits of up to 40 billion yuan.

It was reported that when some depositors planned to go in person to Henan to withdraw money last month, their #HealthCode turned red, effectively restricting their movement. It is suspected that the concerned authority was behind this controversial act.

Source: Radio Free Asia #Jul11

Detailed report [in Chinese] ➡️ https://bit.ly/3OZ3r7v

#ChinaBankCrisis
#China uses #coronavirus warning app to stifle #dissent

//China's #COVID19 warning app enables health authorities to move quickly against a virus outbreak. But it seems officials also use the app to stop perfectly healthy people from doing what Beijing doesn't want them to do. And the target is dissidents.//

Watch the video:
https://www.dw.com/en/china-uses-coronavirus-warning-app-to-stifle-dissent/av-62501253

Source: DW #Jul17

#HealthCode #MassSurveillance #Beijing #Authoritarianism
Surveillance for All: China Pushes for Permanent Health Code by 2025

Source: Radio Free Asia #Nov10

#CCP #SurveillanceState #WuhanPneumonia #HealthCode #BigData #BigBrother

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Surveillance for All: China Pushes for Permanent Health Code by 2025

Although the #WHO had clearly stated that there had been a drastic 90% decrease in COVID deaths across the world, China had not embraced this optimistic view. Instead, it has declared a goal of making the Health QR Code mandatory for everyone in the country by 2025, enforcing a long-term, real-time surveillance for its citizens.

On Nov 9, The National Health Commission of China announced on its website that by 2025, every Chinese citizen will have a dynamically-managed electronic health file and a fully-functional electronic health code. The announcement is jointly published by the National Health Commission, State Administration of State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the announcement, the health code systems currently in use are run by each province separately, and the systems from different provinces do not generally recognize each other's codes. In response, the central government aims to create a basic, inter-connected surveillance platform by 2025, in which each resident will have a dynamically-managed electronic health file and a fully-functional electronic health code.

With such a system in place, the Chinese government will be able to leverage big data to trace the so-called "high-risk individuals", establishing a long-term, real-time surveillance and control of the Chinese populace.

Source: Radio Free Asia #Nov10

https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/code-11102022062758.html

see also:
"Encode us": Health Code, or is it CCP's Social Credit System? (Aug 17, 2020)
https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/24283

#CCP #SurveillanceState #WuhanPneumonia #HealthCode #BigData #BigBrother