Club Breakfast Briefing: The Hong Kong Protests – A Workshop on Digital Security

We live in an age where everyone is listening and almost everything can be tracked — the last thing journalists want to do is put themselves or their sources in danger. In the third of a series of FCC breakfast briefings to provide training for journalists amid the Hong Kong protests, digital security and internet policy expert Lokman Tsui gave a briefing on how to take precautions to protect yourself, your work and your sources’ digital communications while covering politically sensitive events. His talk included an explanation of best practices when sharing information online or through messaging apps, and an examination of the most — and least — secure tools. He discussed what information to leave off email and social media and provide a primer on topics like encryption, VPNs, and how hackers access information.

Lokman Tsui is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he researches free expression and internet regulation. From 2011 to 2014, he was the head of free expression for Asia and the Pacific at Google. He was also a faculty associate and a research fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He received his PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where his award-winning dissertation is a critical interrogation of how new technologies challenge us to rethink journalism. Born and raised in the Netherlands, he managed the unofficial website for filmmaker Wong Kar Wai for many years. He was a speaker on a panel on journalist privacy at the 2019 FCC Journalism Conference.

With the workshops, the FCC is furthering its goal of promoting press freedom in Hong Kong by serving as a forum for education and discussion. They are open to all club members and guests and all Hong Kong journalists.