As Hong Kong convulses amid weeks of protests, demonstrators and the police have turned identity into a weapon.
Authorities are tracking protest leaders online and seeking their phones. Many protesters now cover their faces, and they fear that the police are using cameras and possibly other tools to single out targets for arrest.
The transformation strikes a strong chord in Hong Kong. The protests began over a proposed bill that would have allowed the city to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China, where the police and courts ultimately answer to the Communist Party. "Why do the police get away while we're getting attacked?" said Billy Tsui, a hairdresser. "If they do something wrong, they should face legal consequences." He said that he favoured peace over violence but that he also had some sympathy for the Telegram group exposing officers as a check on police misconduct.
"Dadfindboy"— a play on the name of a Facebook group created under the auspices of helping mothers find their children, but which ultimately became a way for pro-government groups to gather photos of protesters — is one forum for the doxxing of police officers.
After the officers tried to use his face to unlock the phone, they took him to a police station, where, he said, he was roughed up and interrogated. Later, officers went to his home and used a USB drive loaded with hacking software to break into his computers, according to his account of the incident. He said that he had been held for more than 10 hours and that he was not sure how the police had identified him.
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