ID card static hits the mobiles

FEELING some pain over your mobile-phone bill? Spare a thought for those without access to the unofficial symbol of the SAR because they don't have or refuse to produce a copy of a Hong Kong identity card.

These unfortunates are forced by phone companies to cough up a $5,000 deposit.

'I think it's ridiculous,' says Craig Leeson, a journalist who needs a mobile phone but refuses, as a matter of principle, to give in to the service providers' demands for a copy of his ID card.

One of the main goals of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, which took effect in December 1996, was to bring under strict control the collection, holding, processing and use of identity cards - by photocopying them, for example.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner so far has received more than 1,500 complaints, and several of these have related to the improper use of ID cards by telecoms companies.

Deputy commissioner Robin McLeish says, however, mobile-phone companies are not breaking any laws by demanding copies of identity cards, provided they can offer sound justification for doing so, such as proven risk of fraud by users.

He and Consumer Council spokesman Kenneth So Wai-sing question the need for a $5,000 cash deposit, though - particularly since other rental companies simply ask for a credit-card imprint as security.