Delivery worker claims he found flash drive in his vehicle and posted surveillance camera footage showing fights and suicide bid on Facebook
PHILA.SIU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Saturday, 11 June, 2016, 11:44pm
A clip showing inmates of an unknown prison fighting on a basketball court. Photo: Facebook
A top-level investigation is underway after CCTV footage showing mass violence and inmate suicide attempts inside Hong Kong’s prison system was made public on the internet.
Prison chiefs and police have launched separate probes after a delivery worker claimed he found the clips, by chance, in his van.
The clips – contained on a flash drive and posted on social media – show inmates brawling with each other, disturbing footage of a prisoner apparently self harming in a cell and another inmate trying to hang himself.
The leak of four pieces of footage raises questions about security within the Correctional Services Department, which has set up a task force led by an assistant commissioner to investigate.
In one clip, about 20 prisoners start fighting on a basketball court before prison officers wade in and separate them. Another shows a fight between two prisoners in a room where about 20 inmates were gathering.
A third clip shows a prisoner trying to hang himself, and another shows an inmate trying to harm himself by jumping and slamming into a table in his cell.
The footage was taken between July 2013 and June 2014. The prisons involved have not been identified.
The man who put the footage on Facebook claimed in a post last Sunday that he spotted a USB flash drive on his car’s dashboard after finishing a delivery order. After checking it had not been left there by a colleague, he took it to a cybercafe.
“I opened up the files and, wow! There were text documents, photos and even videos. The text documents were all in English and so I didn’t know exactly what they were about. But there were names, identity card numbers and addresses of the prisoners,” he wrote.
A clip showing a confrontation inside a Hong Kong prison. Photo: Facebook
He said there were dozens of surveillance camera clips that resembled prison movies.
“How did such personal and sensitive information jump into my vehicle?
“I wholeheartedly felt sad for the prisoners. It is like the [Correctional Services Department] took all their clothes off and threw them on the street. Doesn’t the [department] have procedures on how to handle such information?”
The department confirmed that a senior officer had lost an encrypted flash disc. It contained CCTV footage for training purposes and internal investigations. Other files included assessment reports of officers and investigation reports.
The department reported the case to police and said its task force would look into whether staff negligence was to blame. A spokesman stressed the department had clear guidelines on how to handle prisoners’ personal data.
A CSD officer who asked not to be named said that any officer, no matter what their rank, could for professional purposes apply for a USB flash drive that carried personal information about prisoners.
“Everyone makes mistakes. But the department needs to probe this incident thoroughly and offer an explanation to the public. This is an outrageous incident,” the officer said.
Barrister Albert Luk Wai-hung said the delivery worker could be charged with theft and dishonest use of a computer, offences that carry maximum penalties of 10 years and five years in prison respectively.
“And he has put himself in a disadvantageous position by admitting that he put the clips on Facebook,”Luk said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1973031/hong-kong-prison-video-leak-sparks-probe
