Ah, this one is from January 3rd, 2005, during those horrible post-tsunami days with over 1000 holidaying HKers missing-in-action:
OK, I know I'm being insensitive, what with over 1000 Hong
Kongers still missing around the post-tsunami world, but
I'm terrified by what the HK police are currently up to.
Have you heard about it?
You know how we here in HK are all required by law to carry
around our "Smart ID Cards", right? Supposedly super-space-
age type technology, right?
The ID of the future, right?
Well, HK has a special police task force traveling around
the tsunami-spots in S.E. Asia as we speak.
Seems they come into each devastated area in turn (they've
already done from Khao Lar, Phi Phi, Krabbi and Phuket)
set up their special computers, switch on their remote-
scanners and pick up all the Smart ID data in the region
within a several mile radius.
They then cross-check the identities that appear on the
scanners with known survivors, rescue workers and the cards
known to be missing (seems there're lots of cards lying
around under the rubble of hotels, out at sea, buried under
sand, etc, etc, etc) and then send out crews to locate
anyone they can't accounted for, both in the area AND in
Hong Kong.
Seems they also sending these names and details back to HK
to find out all about them then send police around to
collect DNA samples from relatives. Then the police in the
tsunami-areas are going around the hospitals looking for DNA
matches among the dead - or among the collected DNA of the
already cremated ... etc etc etc OK, this all seems very clever under these circumstances
but think of what this is actually saying: these guys can
pick up our identities and all our personal data from several
miles away with remote scanners.
I'm horrified.
Look, just because they're out in Krabbi or whereever, using
these cards for good instead of evil, who's to say they
aren't also using it for evil.
Like, there's a democracy demonstration here in Victoria Park,
right, or a democracy march, so who's the watchdog on this?
Who's to say they don't run their remote scanners over the area
and pick up the names of everyone there?
OK, I know that's unlikely since this is HK and it's a benign
place with Rule of Law and civil liberties and all ... but we
are on the doorstep of a not-benign power and who's to say
they've not got a lot of these nifty scanners themselves
Yeah, how do we know that Mainland Chinese aren't doing it
too?
Are there safeguards? Parameters of usage? What's to stop
people who aren't meant to do it from doing it? Triads? PLA?
But even ignoring that, you get what this means? The
technology is already available to allow Big Brother to
watch every aspect of our lives.
There are cameras everywhere in HK watching our every move, I
knewthat, but to find out they can also pick up your Smart
ID data and know exactly who you are and where you live?
This realisation is frankly terrifying!
OMG! I realise now it's already happened to me. Only a month
ago,a policeman said to me "You are a persistant jay-walker.
If youkeep doing it we have no option but to press charges!"
I thought "Lucky guess! There's no way you can know something
like that!" but seems like I was very, very wrong.
They're watching and they know who you are! And if they're
being all anal and using this dangerous technology to check
up on minor infractions of the law, I genuinely fear for all
our futures!
Don't let them bring in Smart ID Cards into Oz. Resist it
with everything you've got.
Oh, however, there's a little piece of good news in all this:
Seems that the HK police are so efficient they're
creeping everyone out in Indonesian, so the locals there have
begun to screw them around to prevent them doing their jobs.
This is making me feel a lot less afraid; that even with all
this Big Brother technology in place, the little guy can still
put a spanner into the works!
Go, go Little Guy!
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