The data were extracted from the excellent Hong Kong Transparency Report as well as transparency reports from various online service providers' global transparency reports from 2010 onward– its shows a steep increase in surveillance requests, and hints that the HK government's stats omit a large slice of its activities.
According to the data by Hong Kong Transparency Report
*
A 900% increase in the total reported requests submitted by the Hong Kong government in 2013, compared to 2010.* Specifically, reported user's data requests spiked to more than 5500 in 2013, while never having reached more than 190 before.
* On the contrary, content removal requests actually dropped from 2012 to 2013 – although the value is still at a 240% increase from that of 2010.
Hong Kong Transparency Database
(Thanks, Kyle!)
(Image: umbrella revolution_5059, Chet Wong, CC-BY)