Hong Kong government moves against two prominent Western tech platforms and bans them on government devices
Two western platforms have been banned on government devices in Hong Kong, the so called “special administrative region” of the People’s Republic of China.
The Associated Press reported that the Hong Kong government is barring most civil servants from using popular apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and Google Drive on their work computers due to potential “security risks.”
It should be noted that WhatsApp and Google Drive are already banned in mainland China, as are Facebook, Twitter and other Google services under the communist nation’s high restrictive “great Firewall”.
Chinese clampdowns
In May this year Alphabet’s YouTube had reluctantly compiled with a court order in Hong Kong, and blocked a protest anthem widely used by protesters in the former British colony.
The former British colony had returned to Chinese rule back in 1997, with a guarantee that its freedoms would be preserved under a “one country, two systems” formula.
But protests by hundreds of thousands people began in 2019 over an extradition bill that allowed people in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China to stand trial.
In July 2020 big name tech firms confirmed they would not give Hong Kong authorities any user data, after the passing of a draconian security law in Hong Kong, which the British government said at the time violated its Joint Declaration agreement between the two countries.
Indeed, such was the concern that the British government announced that Hong Kong citizens with a British overseas passport would be eligible for a route to full British citizenship.
In July 2021 there was a warning that Hong Kong’s increasing strict security and data protection laws could force some tech giants to stop providing services in the city.
That Chinese national security law essentially criminalised secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers, and critics said the law was a sweeping change that was an attack on freedom of speech and the press.
Indeed, it allowed local police to order social media platforms, publishers and internet service providers to remove any electronic message that was likely to constitute an offence endangering national security or is likely to cause such an offence to occur.
WhatsApp, Google Drive ban
Now according to the Associated Press, the latest IT security guidelines from the Digitial Policy Office has many civil servants complaining about added inconvenience due to the WhatsApp and Google Drive ban.
Government workers will reportedly still be allowed to use the services from personal devices at work, and can get exceptions to the ban with approval from a manager.
It comes after data breaches at various Hong Kong government departments earlier this year had reportedly compromised the personal information of at least tens of thousands of people and sparked security concerns.