HONG KONG: A former Hong Kong telecoms worker was jailed Tuesday for publishing personal details of police officers and their families during the huge pro-democracy protests last year, the first such conviction linked to political unrest.
Chan King-hei, 33, was sentenced to two years in jail after being convicted last month of unlawfully obtaining and disclosing personal data stored on computers at his former employer, Hong Kong Telecom.
Publishing personal details online – known as doxxing – became a common tactic used by both sides of Hong Kong’s political divide during last year’s protests.
Police became a key target for protesters as clashes raged – especially after officers stopped wearing identification badges – while government loyalists have also doxxed Beijing’s critics.
During their investigation police discovered personal information, including ID card and telephone numbers as well as residential addresses of officers and their families on Chan’s mobile phone.
They also found he had downloaded files from his company’s computers.
Some of the personal details were then shared on a Telegram channel dedicated to exposing the personal details of police officers and pro-government figures, the court said.
Hong Kong was convulsed by seven straight months of protests last year calling for greater democratic freedoms and police accountability.
Backed by Beijing, authorities refused concessions and more than 10,000 people were arrested.
The courts are now filled with prosecutions and Beijing imposed a sweeping new security law on the restless city in June.
The measures have snuffed out mass expressions of dissent but the underlying causes of the unrest remain unaddressed.
A 25-year old immigration official is currently being prosecuted for allegedly using government computers to access the personal information of over 220 individuals, including police officers, senior officials, judges and their family members.
A sophisticated and shady website called HK Leaks has also ramped up its doxxing of government critics, especially since the new national security law came in.
HK Leaks has so far posted the personal details of more than 2,000 people it deems guilty of various “misdeeds” against China. Registered on a Russian server, it is specifically designed to evade prosecution, experts say.
“It is saddening that doxxing acts often lead to cyberbullying or even criminal intimidation of the victims and their family members,” Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung said following Tuesday’s sentencing.
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Hong Kong man jailed for ‘doxxing’ police during protests
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Hong Kong man jailed for ‘doxxing’ police during protests
- Publishing personal details online – known as doxxing – became a common tactic used by both sides of Hong Kong’s political divide
Louvre heist probe still aims to ‘recover jewelry’, top prosecutor says
- Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the brazen October 19 robbery
PARIS: French investigators remain determined to find the imperial jewels stolen from the Louvre in October, a prosecutor has said.
Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the brazen October 19 robbery, making off with jewelry worth an estimated $102 million from the world-famous museum.
“The interrogations have not produced any new investigative elements,” top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said this week, three months after the broad-daylight heist.
But the case remains a top priority, she underlined.
“Our main objective is still to recover the jewelry,” she said.
That Sunday morning in October, thieves parked a mover’s truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels.
Two of the thieves climbed up the ladder, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut glass display booths containing the treasures, while the other two waited below, investigators say.
The four then fled on high-powered motor scooters, dropping a diamond-and-emerald crown in their hurry.
But eight other items of jewelry — including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise — remain at large.
Beccuau said investigators were keeping an open mind as to where the loot might be.
“We don’t have any signals indicating that the jewelry is likely to have crossed the border,” she said, though she added: “Anything is possible.”
Detectives benefitted from contacts with “intermediaries in the art world, including internationally” as they pursued their probe.
“They have ways of receiving warning signals about networks of receivers of stolen goods, including abroad,” Beccuau said.
As for anyone coming forward to hand over the jewels, that would be considered to be “active repentance, which could be taken into consideration” later during a trial, she said.
A fifth suspect, a 38-year-old woman who is the partner of one of the men, has been charged with being an accomplice but was released under judicial supervision pending a trial.
Investigators still had no idea if someone had ordered the theft.
“We refuse to have any preconceived notions about what might have led the individuals concerned to commit this theft,” the prosecutor said.
But she said detectives and investigating magistrates were resolute.
“We haven’t said our last word. It will take as long as it takes,” she said.
Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the brazen October 19 robbery, making off with jewelry worth an estimated $102 million from the world-famous museum.
“The interrogations have not produced any new investigative elements,” top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said this week, three months after the broad-daylight heist.
But the case remains a top priority, she underlined.
“Our main objective is still to recover the jewelry,” she said.
That Sunday morning in October, thieves parked a mover’s truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels.
Two of the thieves climbed up the ladder, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut glass display booths containing the treasures, while the other two waited below, investigators say.
The four then fled on high-powered motor scooters, dropping a diamond-and-emerald crown in their hurry.
But eight other items of jewelry — including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise — remain at large.
Beccuau said investigators were keeping an open mind as to where the loot might be.
“We don’t have any signals indicating that the jewelry is likely to have crossed the border,” she said, though she added: “Anything is possible.”
Detectives benefitted from contacts with “intermediaries in the art world, including internationally” as they pursued their probe.
“They have ways of receiving warning signals about networks of receivers of stolen goods, including abroad,” Beccuau said.
As for anyone coming forward to hand over the jewels, that would be considered to be “active repentance, which could be taken into consideration” later during a trial, she said.
A fifth suspect, a 38-year-old woman who is the partner of one of the men, has been charged with being an accomplice but was released under judicial supervision pending a trial.
Investigators still had no idea if someone had ordered the theft.
“We refuse to have any preconceived notions about what might have led the individuals concerned to commit this theft,” the prosecutor said.
But she said detectives and investigating magistrates were resolute.
“We haven’t said our last word. It will take as long as it takes,” she said.
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