Some victims of wrongful government bugging and surveillance may be informed that they were targeted, under a proposed amendment to the covert surveillance bill.
But the concession falls short of the wider notification requirement many lawmakers and both the Bar Association and the Law Society had called for.
The amendment provides that the independent commissioner on interception of communications and surveillance may notify the subjects wrongfully targeted if it is found during regular random reviews that the spying was not authorised.
Previously, the bill only provided for notification when someone who suspects they are being monitored lodges a complaint with the commissioner and is found to have been wrongfully targeted.
But since it will not be practicable for the commissioner to review every case, he will effectively be able to scrutinise only a small selection of cases.
Democrat James To Kun-sun, whose Interception of Communications Ordinance was passed in Legco in 1997 but never brought into force, said the proposed mechanism was too narrow.