Claims that police can stop people on the street and demand their phone passwords are “false and misleading,” security chief Chris Tang has said after the government introduced a series of new national security rules . A smartphone. Photo: dole777/Unsplash. Tang said in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on Tuesday that with the new requirements in place, there was concern among the public about privacy breaches if police were to randomly demand citizens on the street to hand over mobile phone password.
“That’s false and misleading,” Tang said in Cantonese.
The minister said that police must apply for a court warrant providing “national security reasons” before requesting people suspected of endangering national security to hand over mobile phone passwords.
However, Acting Secretary for Justice Horace Cheung said in LegCo that under some “extreme, exceptional” circumstances, police can demand mobile phone passwords without court warrants if the suspected national security offence was so “imminent and obvious” that police do not have time to apply for warrants. Secretary for Security Chris Tang speaks at LegCo on March 8, 2024. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. The officials’ remarks came after the government gazetted amendments to the “implementation rules” of the Beijing-imposed national security law on Monday, introducing the password requirement alongside granting several new powers to authorities. Under the new rules, police can require people under national security investigations to provide passwords or decrypt their electronic devices. Police can also compel anyone believed to know of the password or the decryption method of a device under investigation to disclose such information. Failure to do so can be punished by up to a one-year jail term and a HK$100,000 fine.
Chris Ip, a pro-Beijing lawmaker of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, asked the officials in LegCo if such penalty is sufficiently deterrent.
The lawmaker said if a suspect complies with the request to hand over their phone password, therefore aiding police’s investigation, they could be jailed for 10 years. The Legislative Council. Photo: Kelly Ho/HKFP. But the person would face only a one-year jail term if they refuse to provide their password, Ip added.
Tang said authorities do have the technology to unlock mobile phones. It simply takes time but does not obstruct the collection of evidence, he added. The new rules also empowered customs officers to freeze or confiscate assets relating to national security crimes or to forfeit “articles that have seditious intention.”
Dominic Lee, a pro-Beijing lawmaker from the New People’s Party, asked why the amendment authorises custom officers, who are not part of the police’s National Security Department, to confiscate items with seditious intent.
Tang said in previous cases where Customs intercepted seditious publications, the police had to be called in to formally seize or confiscate them. The official said the process needs to be further “optimised” to allow Customs to handle such matters independently.