Lawmaker says secret ‘backdoor’ allowed cops to find protesters in hospitals

Lawmaker Pierre Chan tells members of the press about a secret backdoor that allowed police to access patients’ hospital records. Screengrab via RTHK.
Lawmaker Pierre Chan tells members of the press about a secret backdoor that allowed police to access patients’ hospital records. Screengrab via RTHK.

A lawmaker representing the healthcare sector told reporters today that police had been able to track down and arrest injured participants in last Wednesday’s chaotic anti-extradition protest thanks to a secret software backdoor giving them access to hospital records.

Lawmaker Pierre Chan said that the backdoor, which could be accessed without a login, enabled police and others to use computers at emergency rooms to obtain patients’ names, ID card numbers, phone numbers, ages and the dates and times of their treatment, RTHK reports.

According to Chan, the backdoor had been implemented by the Hospital Authority, but emergency room staffers only found out about it following last week’s unrest.

“The doctors and nurses in the accident and emergency departments tried to find out why the patients attending A&E got caught. And we didn’t understand. And that’s why they tried to figure it out. And accidentally they found this link, found this backdoor,” Chan said.

“And this system is set up by the head office and also the IT system. It’s not the frontline,” he added.

At least four people were arrested in hospitals over Wednesday’s protest, which was deemed a “riot” by police, who used tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray, and truncheons to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators who had occupied Admiralty in protest of the extradition bill, according to the SCMP.

The bill — which would allow, for the first time in decades, extradition to mainland China — has been at the center of the largest demonstrations in Hong Kong history, and was indefinitely shelved by Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Saturday following the unrest.

The police response to Wednesday’s demonstration — as well as to isolated violence at a rally the previous Sunday — had already badly damaged the public’s trust in the government, something Chan said the disclosure of the hospital backdoor was likely to worsen. He also suggested that the revelation might discourage injured protesters from seeking treatment in the future.

He went on to call on the Hospital Authority to shut down the system immediately, and further asked doctors and nurses not to include whether patients were believed to have been injured in protests on their official reports.

Despite the shelving of the bill, the furor over the legislation is far from finished, and protesters remained outside of LegCo this evening calling for Lam and other senior officials to step down over their handling of the matter.



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on