How do you fight a surveillance state?
What the Hong Kong protests could teach us about our future.
An episode of the Beyond Today podcast, hosted by BBC Radio 4, titled "How do you fight a surveillance state?" was published on October 10, 2019 and runs 18 minutes.
October 10, 2019 ·18m · Beyond Today
Summary
We have never lived in a more closely monitored world. Facial recognition technology is being rolled globally, including across the UK. Data can be acquired without a person’s knowledge, let alone their consent. There is a creeping paranoia and concern among human rights experts that advanced surveillance technology could fall into the wrong hands.We speak to Lokman Tsui, a tech expert and university lecturer in Hong Kong, who is living the midst of an increasingly violent protest movement paranoid about surveillance. We also catch up with Newsnight’s Gabriel Gatehouse, who has just got back from Hong Kong, where he met the young people willing to sacrifice their lives to fight against what they believe to be the oppressive application of technology from mainland China. They both explain why there are lessons from Hong Kong for all of us about the kind of technological future we want to live in.
Episode Description
We have never lived in a more closely monitored world. Facial recognition technology is being rolled globally, including across the UK. Data can be acquired without a person’s knowledge, let alone their consent. There is a creeping paranoia and concern among human rights experts that advanced surveillance technology could fall into the wrong hands.
We speak to Lokman Tsui, a tech expert and university lecturer in Hong Kong, who is living the midst of an increasingly violent protest movement paranoid about surveillance. We also catch up with Newsnight’s Gabriel Gatehouse, who has just got back from Hong Kong, where he met the young people willing to sacrifice their lives to fight against what they believe to be the oppressive application of technology from mainland China. They both explain why there are lessons from Hong Kong for all of us about the kind of technological future we want to live in.
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