A rally against facial recognition technologies in Hong Kong on August 24, 2019, escalated into clashes with police and the destruction of smart poles that the authorities used to de-anonymize participants in other rallies that are going on in the city for more than two. Business Insider writes about it.
The protesters drop smart poles with ropes, flood security cameras with liquids. At the same time, at almost all rallies, participants are wearing masks and with umbrellas so that they cannot be recognized by security cameras.
Hong Kong residents believe that personal identification will allow the Chinese authorities to pressure the activists with the help of their relatives.
The protests in Hong Kong began in June 2019 when the city government passed a law to extradite crime suspects to mainland China.
The Chinese authorities have been monitoring their residents with the help of technology for many years. Chinese police recently arrested Zhang, a 29-year-old resident of Fujian province, on suspicion of killing a girl. The man tried to take out a loan on behalf of the murdered woman through the Money Station application by scanning her face. However, the AI built into the application determined that the person in the picture was dead.
