A ban on travellers bringing duty-free cigarettes into Hong Kong after day trips should be scrapped because the rule cannot be enforced, a legislator said yesterday.
The government intends to allow computerised immigration records to be shared with Customs officers to make it easier to check whether travellers have been out of Hong Kong for less than 24 hours.
The plan to share records has stirred fears over privacy.
In the Audit Commission's value-for-money report on the public sector last month, the Customs and Excise Department was criticised for failing to enforce the ban on day-trippers returning with duty-free goods.
In a Legco Public Accounts Committee hearing to question officials, Democrat Sin Chung-kai questioned why the ban, created in 1991, should be retained.
'It is easier to check whether [travellers] carry more cigarettes than allowed than to check how long they have been away,' the legislator said.