Internet Security

Hong Kong

Encryption Legislation
The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) was introduced to address the security concerns. PKI covers the use of public key cryptography and digital certificates. While public key cryptography addresses issues of data integrity and transaction privacy, certificates address concerns in authentication and access control. Public key cryptography involves the use of a pair of different, but related keys which enables the conduct of e-Commerce securely on the open telecommunications network or the Internet. Each user has a private key and a public key. The private key is kept and only known by the user, while the public key is placed in the Public Directory by Hongkong Post. A digital certificate is a digital document attesting to the binding of a public key to an individual or other entity. It allows verification of the claim that a specific public key does in fact belong to a special individual. A Hongkong Post e-Cert contains a public key, the name of the holder, an expiry date, a certificate serial number and subscriber reference number (Au-Yeung, 2000).

The Hongkong Post, the first Recognized Certification Authority under the Electronic Transaction Ordinance, offer e-certificates to support electronic signatures reliable enough to be recognized as equivalent to written signatures.

Certain kinds of software and technology, particularly encryption products, will require an import license. Software that is "generally available to the public", such as mass market software does not ordinarily require a license. In practice, however, all encryption software and hardware will require a license prior to import or export.

National Security
Before the handover of sovereignty, the laws for protection of national security were drawn up by the colonial government. However, these laws had not been evoked for decades as Hong Kong society was relatively stable. After the China and the United Kingdom signed the Joint Declaration in 1984, Beijing started to work on the legal framework Hong Kong after the handover. In April 1988, the first draft of Basic Law was issued. Article 22 read:

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall prohibit by law any act designed to undermine national unity or subvert the Central People's Government