The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are getting worse day by day, with over a million citizens trying to put forth their demands for freedom and democracy in a calm and peaceful manner, while facing violent backlash from the pro-China authorities.
AP
And one thing that has been spearheading these protests is the Hong Kong protesters clever use of technology not only as a weapon but as a shield, depending on the situation.
As they say, technology is a double edged sword, and the Hong Kong crowd is being the most tech savvy to use what's beneficial for their pro-democracy cause and protests, and shielding themselves from the negative effects of technology.
People who're a part of the protests fear that their personal information will be tracked by the officers or the Chinese government using RFID scanners. Most ID cards have RFID sensors these days that enable easy scanning of the loaded data. To prevent this scanning, many people participating in the protest have covered their ID's in aluminium foil to make the RFID scanners not perform as intended to.
People who were being arrested by the officials have revealed that they've snooped in people's devices and looking at personal data of the users by forcing them to unlock the device. Many protesters have thus issued digital fliers recommending protesters to not carry a phone with them, thus keeping their personal information safe and sound and away from the officials.?
China is known to be using facial recognition to spy on its citizens using surveillance cameras. And now, it has been taking down protesters whose faces were detected using these surveillance systems. To safeguard their privacy protesters are flashing laser pointers on to these cameras that not only blinds the sensors but also makes the facial-recognition non-functional. Some protesters were also seen flashing these laser pointers in officer's eyes that was causing permanent damage to the eyes of the officers.?
Reuters
In order to receive supplies to continue the protests, citizens of Hong Kong were seen live-streaming on Twitch- a platform that is synonymous to live- streaming of games. These streams helped concerned people stay in the loop and provide with necessary resources or figure out logistics for the same, while revealing to the citizens what was actually going down as opposed to the doctored news being broadcast on news agencies controlled by the Chinese government. Twitch stream witnessed over 10,000 live viewers. Some protesters also live-streamed on Twitter-owned video streaming platform Periscope till the network speeds on mobile weren't slowed down.?
People in Hong Kong are known to rely on messaging platforms like WeChat and iMessage, however these platforms are closely monitored by the Chinese government. To circumvent this, protesters made the most of chats platforms that use end-to-end encryption- WhatsApp and Telegram. This way they could communicate privately without allowing the Chinese government to snoop in.
Reuters
Octopus is a smart-card based pass that allowed the citizens of Hong Kong to make use of public transport conveniently. However, since it was linked with personal information information of the citizen, whenever they punched it, the people from the government could easily figure out where they were headed, thus conveniently linking them to the protests. To prevent this from happening, they completely stopped using these cards and switched queuing up conventionally for tickets.?
It was common for people in Hong Kong to make the most of the wide net of free Wi-Fi that was at their disposal. However, with Chinese government getting stringent with their data tracking, many protesters were advised to put an end to use of public Wi-Fi network and stick to private network, either on cellular or at home to communicate with each other and keeping the government off-track.