It's a question whether standard police work should be reformed since despite all classical attempts at hiding, they were found.

It questions: are the trade offs worth it?

I suppose the corrolary being: what if this protest was more legitimate but the police was corrupt?

I live in China myself so I find it interesting to ask this question before it's fully done and lost, even if I feel I know the answer: yes, it is worth it, and you'll never shock people with stories of criminals being founds thanks to general surveillance as much as they're shocked by unsolved horrendous crimes, so the abuses will be tolerated (or hidden thanks to the new structure of standard police work) as price to pay, when a critical mass of crimes that could have been solved will be reached.

And I am sad to tell you, that trading freedom for safety is paradise, and when I left the scary city I lived in before to Hong Kong where I live now, I felt such a surprised relief at the total absence of small crimes (all citizens prints are stored on a central database for instance, all 7M of us can be found in an instant). I'm never going back, they can read my emails and track my phone.