#TikTok #Japan #MassSurveillance #Privacy

Some local governments in Japan suspend TikTok accounts

Recently, there are voices in many countries that the Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok, perhaps, sends user data directly to the Chinese government. Following the announcement by the Kobe City Government of Japan suspending official Tiktok accounts, Saitama Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture also announced yesterday about the suspension of official TikTok accounts due to many citizens' concerns about leaking user information.

The Saitama Prefecture government announced on 5 August 2020 that it would stop using its official Tiktok account created in February, with a total of about 20 messages released, such as dancing videos promoting local customs and anti-epidemic related videos. Although the local government only made an announcement yesterday, it suspended the account as early as July 20 and deleted all videos. The number of followers of the Saitama account was approximately 1,000.

The official Osaka account had 33,000 followers before the suspension. Yesterday, Yoshimura Hirofumi, the Governor of Osaka also said, "We decided to freeze the account before we can find out whether there is a security problem." He also mentioned in an earlier interview that TikTok was a tool for sending information to elementary, middle and high school students effectively. "However, the most important thing is the national interest, if there is a security problem, we should suspend using it."

The Kobe City announced earlier that it temporarily suspended its official TikTok account from 3 August. In order to strengthen the contact with the youngster, the city cooperated with TikTok in May this year and began to distribute animals-related videos and parenting support information on the software. The number of followers was approximately 550.

Source: Stand News #Aug6
#BigData #Kobe #Saitama #Osaka

#Analysis #OpinionArticle #HealthCode #MassSurveillance
Why Health Code is worse than National Security Law

Part 4/4.

A researcher of the Human Rights Watch once said, “the outbreak of Coronavirus is becoming a milestone for China to carry out large scale surveillance.” (n.b. China has recently sanctioned the Chief Executive of Human Rights Watch.)

The long-deployed social credit system in China failed to perform rigorous surveillance, which was criticized for giving rise to “loopholes” during epidemic outbreak.

When designing Health Code, it was meant to gear up suvellience control. Its encroachment to people's privacy is appreciably worse than social credit system.

Today the government may collect your health data, personal data, and details of daily activity for Health Code. Soon afterwards, collecting people's vital data, contents of their online chats will no longer be a fantasy Arabian Nights.

Once the Health Code is put in place, you do not need a prison cell to be imprisoned as your home will become a prison, sparing also court deliberations.

"Want to go out? Denied. … A red health code! "
"Want to ride a car? Denied. … A red health code!"
"Want to go shopping? Denied. … A red health code!"

Compred to Health Code, the detriment of National Security Law is nothing at all.

Source: 書生百用 #Aug13

#SocialCreditSystem #BigData #Privacy #CCP #BlackMirror

Further Reading
Part 1:
https://publielectoral.lat/guardiansofhongkong/24292

Part 2:
https://publielectoral.lat/guardiansofhongkong/24316

Part 3:
https://publielectoral.lat/guardiansofhongkong/24336

#NetizensVoice #ChineseApps

This is too scary, the era of big data, I...

Editor’s note: From the internet censorship to facial recognition and more recently, the health code, China has been establishing policies to control the human behaviour of Chinese people. However, cannot hold the fire, it is possible that Chinese people ,like the one who posted the above concern to the internet, are going to have more doubts about the Chinese apps, the monitoring and the Chinese government.

(16 Aug) This could be the most horrifying photo I have seen recently!

I have heard people say that Taobao may monitor the keyboard, search history and even sound [from microphone] for big data analysis and goods recommendation. I was doubtful about this and thought that maybe it is possible, but not to that god-like extend...

But the fact has exceeded my imagination!

The 25kg skimmed formula powder... My god... Even without asking we know that this is not any common product...

Yesterday I bought a chair and the seller packed the chair with this bag [of the 25kg formula powder]. With no verbal description, no taking of photos, no word-typing, under zero actions [regarding the packaging], today my Taobao homepage recommended me product in the same packaging!

I then recalled the memory. Yesterday, the only action related to Taobao was when I was installing the chair, I opened up Taobao and bought other goods on the website. Does that mean that when I opened up the Taobao page, my camera was working? Was it scanning the image beside me?!

Source: TG Channel
Translated by: Hong Kong Echo

Further reading:
Taiwan tells Taobao e-commerce site to re-register or leave island
https://bit.ly/31zbW2A

#BigData #Surveillance #Taobao #Privacy

#OpinionArticle

The Pentagon Is Urging Its Subordinates Not To Test Their Genes Casually, How About You?

(24 Aug) On 20 December, 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense issued an internal memo advising its component personnel not to use commercial DNA testing kits, citing the potential security risks posed by these tests.

//but the protection of privacy for the subject is close to zero. Even if you buy the set under a false name, pay for it with a secret credit card, and receive it at an address that is not your own, the DNA sample is unique to you and can be traced back to only you.

//In the People's Republic of China, notifications can even be set up as a WeChat widget, which is how your personal genetic information is linked to WeChat. As long as you have a few more people around you who are genetically linked to you for testing, your relationship and your personal identity will have nowhere to hide.

Full translation: https://telegra.ph/The-Pentagon-Is-Urging-Its-Subordinates-Not-To-Test-Their-Genes-Casually-How-About-You-09-07

Source: Pazu’s Facebook
https://bit.ly/2R2Gjsc
Translated by: Hong Kong Echo

#DNAtest #GeneticInformation #Privacy #CommunityWideTesting #WeGene #CircleDNA #23MagicCube #WeChat

#MassSurveillance #BigBrother
Covid-19: China pushes for QR Code based global travel system

In the G20 summit, Xi Jinping pushed QR codes which could be used to recognize “health certificates based on nucleic acid test result.

Human Rights advocates want that the codes could be used for “broader political monitoring and exclusion”. And the codes are based on a combination of big data and information submitted by the users themselves.

Chinese QR codes was developed by financial technology giant Ant Financial, and is available through its main app Alipay, but also on WeChat, which belongs to Alipay’s competitor Tencent.

Source: BBC #Nov23

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55039662

#China #G20Summit #QRcode #Covid19 #HealthCode #Privacy #BigData

Chinese Hackers Suspected of Intruding into US Government Computer System, National Security Employees at Risk of Personal Data Breach

Reuters quoted five sources on 3 February as saying that hackers suspected to be of Chinese origin have taken advantage of vulnerabilities in SolarWinds’ software to intrude into US government computers last December. This was the second time the American government computer system was reported to have been compromised since the Russian invasion last December.

According to two sources, FBI investigators have recently discovered that the National Finance Center, the USDA-administered unit responsible for the federal payroll, was one of the government agencies under attack. This has led to worries that the data of tens of thousands of US government employees’ data might have been stolen.

The National Finance Center is responsible for handling the wages of the employees of multiple government organizations, which include agencies involved in national security matters like the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Treasury. The Center holds the employees’ identity card numbers, phone numbers, personal email addresses and banking information.

Source: Stand News #Feb03

#US #China #Russia #SolarWinds #NationalFinanceCenter #Cyberattack #NationalSecurity #PersonalData #Privacy

https://bit.ly/30UHC1y

#CCP is enacting its plan of pocketing all tech data, tech giants / entrepreneurs will have to listen to Big Brother's orders. Long story short: Chinese apps will become CCP apps, your data will become CCP's data.
-
#China #JackMA #WeChat #Bytedance #Tencent #privacy #english #diyms

#MassSurveillance #Privacy
Media in the Netherlands: #Huawei Might Have Sent Users' Data to China

According to the media outlet de Volkskrant in the Netherlands, the local telecommunication company Telfort was aware sincec 2011 that the Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei could access the data of over millions of users without a trace.

This is revealed in an internal report of KPN, the parent company of Telport; however, the company has never informed relevant department such as the Data Protection Authority (#DPA) and their customers.

Scholars pointed out the possibilty of having the data channeled to China, although Huawei denied that data has been shared.

Source: Stand News #Mar31

https://www.thestandnews.com/international/%E5%A4%96%E5%AA%92-%E8%8F%AF%E7%82%BA%E6%9B%BE%E5%8F%AF%E4%B8%8D%E7%95%99%E7%97%95%E8%B7%A1%E5%AD%98%E5%8F%96%E8%8D%B7%E8%98%AD%E9%9B%BB%E8%A8%8A%E5%95%86%E9%81%8E%E7%99%BE%E8%90%AC%E7%94%A8%E6%88%B6%E8%B3%87%E6%96%99/

#Telport #KPN #Telecommunication #BigData #BigBrother

#BigBrother
British Minister Resigned Over Affair Scandal; Surveillance Camera Comes from Chinese enterprises monitoring Xinjiang 
 
British Secretary of Health Matt Hancock, who was married, was revealed to have kissed a colleague, who was also married, in his office. Matt has resigned on 26 June, 2021.

What alarmed the British government the most is the leakage of the surveillance camera footage of Matt's office.

According to the media, the camera was menufactured by the Chinese company Hikvision, which provides CCP with equipment to monitor Xinjiang. The company has been blacklisted by the United States for violating human rights in Uyghur.
 
Although British security officers claimed that there was a low chance that the incident involved countries that are hostile to the UK, British politicians called on the government to pay attention to China-made monitoring devices.

British Labour Party member Conor McGinn indicated that "the problem is not just about the scandal of Matt Hancock being exposed, but the security crisis within the British government“.

McGinn demanded the goverment to respond to how "a private company that has a connection with China can reach the depth of Whitehall”.
 
Source: Stand News #Jun29

https://bit.ly/3wUcHQs

#UnitedKingdom #Xinjiang #Uyghurs #Monitoring #MattHancock #Privacy #Blacklist #China #Politics  

Bloomberg: Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” makes investors uneasy, Chinese regulators meet with Wall Street executives to defend against technology companies  
 
According to Bloomberg, China recently defends against technology companies and the “common prosperity” from Chinese President Xi Jinping makes global investors feel disturbed. Chinese regulators and Wall Street executives had a closed meeting on Thursday, which defending the recent suppression of multiple industries, claiming that its regulatory measures are not aimed at technology or private companies. 
 
According to quoted resources from the report, Fang Xinghai, Vice Chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission, Senior Officials of the People’s Bank of China, and financial companies such as Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and BlackRock, held a 3-hour closed-door meeting on Thursday.  
 
During the meeting, Fang Xinghai stated the supervision from Chinese government to Chinese companies should not be interpreted as being decoupled from the US or international financial markets. He stated that, China recent measures are targeting at companies operating consumer platforms and strengthens the supervision to improve privacy safety and national security. For measures that are aiming at education training industries and gaming industries, it is aiming to reduce the concerns of society.  
 
Source: Stand News #Sep19

https://bit.ly/3GRsUvQ
 
#Bloomberg #XiJinping #WallStreet #China #Technology #Supervision #Privacy #NationalSecurity #Education #GamingIndustries