Hong Kong civil servant sentenced to 140 hours of community service for using fake Covid-19 risk-exposure app
- Magistrate rejects immigration assistant Wong Tsz-hin’s claim that he unknowingly used the wrong software
- Defendant, 30, was among five people, including three government workers, arrested last November for similar infractions
A Hong Kong civil servant has been sentenced to 140 hours of community service for trying to enter his workplace with a fake Covid-19 risk-exposure app on the first day the administration required mandatory scanning more than a year ago.
Immigration assistant Wong Tsz-hin returned to Eastern Court on Wednesday to be sentenced for trespassing as a magistrate rejected his defence that he had unknowingly used the wrong software he thought was the government’s “Leave Home Safe” app.
The 30-year-old defendant was among five people, including three government workers, arrested on November 1 last year on suspicion of seeking access to Wan Chai’s Immigration Tower with an imitation app or failing to use one altogether.
Launched in late 2020, the “Leave Home Safe” app required users to scan a QR code when entering a venue and sent notifications if they were found to have potentially been exposed to a Covid-19 patient who visited the location.
Widespread privacy concerns have led the government to repeatedly stress that the app did not have a tracking function. The platform ceased operations in January this year.
The trial earlier this year heard that Wong had shown the wrong app to security staff when he was asked to prove that he had logged his presence before entering the tower.
It soon became clear that Wong did not scan the tower’s QR code but had typed the venue’s name in the “Back Home Safe” imitation app.
