Apple pulls police-tracking app used by protesters

Apple said it immediately began investigating the police-tracking app's use and found it "has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong". PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM HKMAP.LIVE

SAN FRANCISCO • Apple has removed an app that helped Hong Kong protesters track police movements, saying that it was used to ambush law enforcement.

The move follows sharp criticism of the US technology giant by a Chinese state newspaper for allowing the software.

The decision to bar the HKmap.live app, which crowdsources the locations of both the police and protesters, from its App Store plunges Apple into the increasingly fraught political tension between China and the protesters that has also ensnared other US and Hong Kong businesses.

Apple had only just approved the app last week after rejecting it earlier this month. The Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper on Tuesday called the app "poisonous", and decried what it said was Apple's complicity in helping the Hong Kong protesters.

Apple said in a statement on Wednesday that it had started an immediate investigation after "many concerned customers in Hong Kong" contacted the company about the app.

"The app displays police locations, and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimise residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement," it said.

On Twitter, an account believed to be owned by the HKmap.live app's developer said it disagreed with Apple's decision and that there was no evidence to support the Hong Kong police's claims via Apple that the app had been used in ambushes.

"The majority of user review(s) in App Store... suggest HKmap improved public safety, not the opposite," it said. The app consolidates content from public posts on social networks, and moderators delete content that solicits criminal activity and would ban repeated attempts to post such content in the app, it added.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 11, 2019, with the headline Apple pulls police-tracking app used by protesters. Subscribe