Hong Kong's health code invades privacy and violates medical ethics

NTD reporters : Liang Zhen and Zhang Peng, https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2020/08/19/a102921650.html

Direct translation

The Hong Kong government plans to implement national testing and health codes starting next week. The Hong Kong Public Medical Doctors Association Ma Zhongyi questioned that the various policies and practices of the Hong Kong government, effectiveness and transparency, have caused concerns.

Ma Zhongyi, President of the Hong Kong Public Medical Doctors Association: "From the perspective of the epidemic, from the perspective of ethics, and from the perspective of basic human rights and freedom, I feel that I absolutely oppose the promotion of health codes in the Hong Kong community."

Ma Zhongyi, president of the Hong Kong Public Medical Doctors Association, pointed out that some established members and groups declared that in order to increase the detection rate of the people, they should follow the example of Macau and the mainland and implement a health code system in Hong Kong as a prerequisite measure for relaxing social distance among citizens. Experts questioned that the Hong Kong government has violated medical ethics by forcing healthy citizens to participate in inspections and disclose their physical conditions due to inconvenience in life.

Ma Zhongyi, President of the Hong Kong Public Medical Doctors Association: "Of course, from a deeper level, everyone will have more worries. Will your health code contain other information, such as your whereabouts, stolen by the government, like yours? A lot of the information in the smart ID card, even because you are going to get the health code, it becomes a disguised form that you must participate in the national test, and your body information has also been stolen by the government."

The Hong Kong government has implemented a nationwide virus test without a total ban on public activities. Ma Zhongyi believes that this has limited effectiveness in preventing and controlling the epidemic. In addition, a Chinese-funded company was appointed to be responsible for the inspection, and the media was also kicked by the black box operation, which undermined Hong Kong's existing clean government system.

Ma Zhongyi, President of the Hong Kong Association of Public Medical Doctors: "When we started to have opinions about the (government) importing laboratories and medical staff from other places, the government packaged our opinions as "provoking disputes with the country" in one sentence. It’s just “creating trouble”, so the discussion cannot proceed rationally. After the government has so many actions, so many things, although it is packaged to serve Hong Kong citizens, the content will never notify citizens in advance."

Ma Zhongyi said that the epidemic in Hong Kong is still severe at this stage, and the people must realize that the social life pattern must be changed. Restarting economic activities does not rely on the implementation of health codes or virus detection for identification. The current practice of the Hong Kong Government is to place politics above all social issues and public interests.