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> Observers have said the new law forces companies doing business in Hong Kong to provide user data to the Chinese government as well as to comply with censorsh
by strogonoff 6y ago
> Observers have said the new law forces companies doing business in Hong Kong to provide user data to the Chinese government as well as to comply with censorship requests.
This is striking, I have not heard of this interpretation of the new law before.
If that’s actually true, any global company (Facebook, Google, Apple, etc.) that remains operating in HK can be assumed to be sharing private communication data/metadata with CCP, regardless of what its privacy policy says.
- gundmc 6y ago"Google, Facebook and Twitter Suspend Review of Hong Kong Requests for User Data" https://www.wsj.com/articles/whatsapp-to-suspend-processing-law-enforcement-requests-for-user-data-in-hong-kong-11594034580 https://www.wsj.com/articles/whatsapp-to-suspend-processing-...
- takeda 6y agoit's behind a paywall
- raghavgoyal14 6y agohttp://archive.today/uyUl0 http://archive.today/uyUl0
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hker 6y agoRelevant reporting: Hong Kong security law: Police handed power to do warrantless searches, freeze assets, intercept comms, control internet https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/06/breaking-hong-kong-security-law-police-handed-power-to-do-warrantless-searches-freeze-assets-intercept-comms-control-internet/ https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/06/breaking-hong-kong-securit... Note that more details are just being released (and hence newer interpretation of the law, or at least part of it): “On Monday night, the government gazetted the details of Article 43 of the controverisal legislation”.
- strogonoff 6y agoGrim. Is infrastructure capable of enforcing internet restrictions to any useful degree already in place?
- dmix 6y agoChina will probably keep it mostly kosher on the surface level. But no doubt will be wide open in the background for surveillance. Assuming it wasn't already mostly accessible to them. I'd be surprised if anything like the firewall happens. More likely to be quiet intimidation or disappearances of people posting stuff online.
- xwolfi 6y agoDon't forget, however, that for the exact same excuse, the NSA approached american companies who complied with voluntary backdoors for years, until someone betrayed and exiled to Russia. Not saying both are right, just that this is done from New Zealand to Finland, and it's not very easy to understand why we in Hong Kong are suddenly oppressed by that.
- patagurbon 6y agoBecause the possibility that you are disappeared for your online activities is likely much much higher in HK now than it has ever been in those other countries.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- actuator 6y agoGCP and AWS both have regions in Hong Kong. If anyone was storing data for serving it to any place outside, I guess this might be a good time to shift it to some neighbouring region. Additionally many western companies have their offices in Hong Kong. Does this mean any privileged access that these offices/employees had with data is also now susceptible.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hkmaxpro 6y agoThe National Security Law is extraterritorial. Hosting outside of Hong Kong means nothing. https://twitter.com/alvinllum/status/1280184488857710592 https://twitter.com/alvinllum/status/1280184488857710592
- actuator 6y agoCompanies still serving to HK might be screwed anyway. I was saying that wrt companies who had infra in HK which was serving traffic outside HK. It might make sense to not keep that in HK anymore.
- toast0 6y agoHosting outside of Hong Kong is important. Hong Kong can't impound the servers if they're outside the territory, without the cooperation of the server owner/operator or the government where it resides. Of course, if the owner/operator has employees or assets in Hong Kong, those could be held to elicit cooperation.
- hkmaxpro 6y agoIt matters a bit, but not that much. Failure to comply comes with a maximum fine of HK$100,000 (US$ 12,500), plus six months imprisonment for service providers. [0] If HK police repeatedly fine a company, the company may have to stop serving HK or even China. [0] https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1536151-20200706.htm https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1536151-20200706.h...
- lern_too_spel 6y agoApple operates its services inside the great firewall, where the CCP has complete access to its servers. The Hong Kong change is therefore relatively minor for Apple.
- toxik 6y ago_for Chinese users _, is an important distinction.
- politelemon 6y agoChinese users are no less users than other users, and speaks volumes about the companies cooperating with the CCP.
- toxik 6y agoSo... punish the Chinese people for having an oppressive government by not providing them with the top of the line? It seems more unjust to me. There is no good choice here, only bad and worse — I think Apples presence in China is the lesser of two evils. Same with Google etc.
- ipsum2 6y agoI don't know if this distinction is that important. If someone from the US imessages or emails someone holding an Apple account in China, then their data will also be revealed.
- toxik 6y agoThat’s not true — my iCloud data is not transferred to China because I email a Chinese iCloud user. That message will be revealed, but that is very different from “their data will also be revealed.”
- fiblye 6y agoMy worry is that the definition of "Chinese users" will be expanded. Right now the assumption is that it's for Chinese citizens, but of course, anyone who registered an account while in China is also thrown in that pile. I have to wonder if this will someday include Chinese citizens who've been living abroad and created accounts while outside of China, people with former Chinese citizenship who've taken another country's citizenship, their children, and so on. Wechat's surveillance is pushing the idea of what should be monitored by China. It's a real possibility that this will expand into foreign companies with operations in China.
- pankajdoharey 6y agoIt could be true, because that's just the nature of an autocratic state. Former Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany also suspected their citizens conspiring against them. Which is why they need to tap phones and surveil internet.
- DeonPenny 6y agoActually the law force any company in the world to comply with it regardless of whether or not its in HK or not. So if you say something in the US critical of china then go to HK you'd still be in trouble
- jtbayly 6y agoSo I’m assuming everybody who was defending the GDPR nonsense about the law applying to every company worldwide is rethinking that now?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dogcatbatrat 6y agoThat would require the EU to be introspective so it'll never happen, it was probably intentional anyway. The Europeans know they're losing relevance by the day, if they can legislate away their impotence they can pretend the world doesn't just view them as a senile piggyback to trade with.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agocould that law conflict with GDPR under any circumstance? If they can ask for user data about someone in the EU, I guess yes.
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- bmcn2020 6y agoSince HK now = China, I'd imagine that the security laws will be similar; ie, all your data now belongs to us (CCP)
- dathinab 6y agoSome of the new HK laws are worse then the counterpart in China. (Through practically in long term it might not matter that much as law enforcement/interpretation are another matter altogether).
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoalso if they stopped[1] sharing it indicates that they did so until now (including during the protests): > And another one. Twitter just confirmed that it stopped all data and info requests from Hong Kong authorities as soon as Hong Kong’s national security law went into effect. That leaves Apple and Google... What were they handing over last year when many protesters were relying on Facebook products for secure messaging? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/technology/tiktok-google-facebook-twitter-hong-kong.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/technology/tiktok-google-...
- dathinab 6y agoThere are valid data sharing requests, like e.g. in a murder investigation or similar. Sure, one problem is weather or not the investigation is just made up to get data for an less lawful investigation.
- sova 6y agoIs this not by default true of any company operating in China that has sufficient size to be deemed a state-asset?