Legislators demand Octopus transparency
The departure of Prudence Chan Bik-wah would not make the operations of the Octopus Cards more open and transparent if the management did not change its mentality, a lawmaker said yesterday.
Legislators pressed Chan, he chief executive of Octopus Holdings, to step down over her evasiveness and contradictory remarks concerning the smart card issuer's sale of cardholders' personal data.
'[The company] did not give us any information when we first asked them; it manipulated its role as a private company,' said unionist lawmaker Wong Kwok-hing. 'But MTR is Octopus Card's biggest shareholder, and Hong Kong people have almost no choice but to use the card.'
While the MTR Corp holds a 57.4 per cent stake in Octopus Holdings, a spokeswoman said the corporation had no controlling voice in the board of the company because its appointees were limited to 49 per cent of the voting rights.
According to an MTR Corp statement, 'the management of Octopus Holdings is separate and independent, which is important because it deals with companies that are competitors in the market place'.
The MTR Corp and four other shareholders - Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, Kowloon Motor Bus, New World First Bus and its sister company Citybus - said they were informed of Octopus Cards' annual business plan and general performance but did not take part in its daily business decisions.
'As a shareholder ... we specifically sought confirmation from Octopus Holdings that its practices comply with the prevailing laws and regulations ... they assured us that they do, and there was no reason to believe otherwise,' the MTR Corp said.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said earlier that while it supervises Octopus Cards' operation it had no oversight of the company's subsidiaries that deal with marketing.
Being subject to HMKA oversight does not make the card company operations any more accessible to the public.
Financial records and the names of board members are only available in the company's annual report which can be accessed via the computers of HKMA, or a request with Octopus Cards.
A company spokeswoman said that as a private operation it was not required to put such information on its website.
The HKMA said it would consider advising Octopus Cards to allow the public better access to company data - such as by uploading information onto the internet.
Meanwhile, Chan revealed that four million people had joined the three services where personal information was collected - a reward scheme, automatic add value services and personalised cards. She said the personal data of about half of these - 1.97 million cardholders - was sold to six merchant partners.
Worried cardholders continued to make calls to phone-in radio programmes yesterday about the leakage of their personal data.
One man said he had received calls from a telemarketer on behalf of Octopus trying to sell insurance products. 'The caller mentioned my monthly spending in a specific supermarket,' he said.
