Lonely prison clerk Ng King-tong thought he would like to meet some of the stream of beautiful young women he saw visiting inmates at the institution where he worked.
So he used the computer system at the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre to get in touch with some of them, and dated a few, Kowloon City Court heard.
But the 30-year-old's activities were uncovered in an audit, and yesterday Magistrate Henry Mierczak told him he had committed a serious offence involving breach of trust and privacy.
Ng, who pleaded guilty to eight counts of accessing a computer with criminal or dishonest intent between March 4 and June 10 last year, was remanded on bail until September 21 pending sentencing.
The court heard that Ng, an assistant clerical officer in the jail's visiting room, had approached seven women using contact information he found in the computer system.
He was responsible for handling items handed over by visitors to prisoners and there was no need for him to access the visitors' information on computer, the court was told.