bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

When future historians go looking for the annals of seafaring in Hong Kong, they won't have much to go on.
Thousands of boats' logbooks are being seized every month by the government, on the grounds they breach privacy laws because they contain the personal details of past owners.
A historian and an archivist questioned the policy, and a boat owner called it lunacy.
The Marine Department confirmed last week that, since January 2, it had collected  ship licences from owners of about a third of the vessels registered in Hong Kong.
The licences provided a record of when and by whom a boat was built, and who owned it during its lifetime, Hong Kong Maritime Museum director Stephen Davies  said. He   said the department was acting in good faith, but heritage was being destroyed.
The department claims the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance requires it to remove personal details on the licences.
A spokeswoman said: 'A licence book is not the property of the vessel owner. The  owner should return it to the Marine Department for disposal.
'If any vessel owner is interested in keeping the licence book after cancellation/expiry, we have no objection. However, we are obliged to  conceal the personal data of former vessel owners unless consent is sought from [them].'
The privacy ordinance contains a clause stating it does not apply to documents of historical importance.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data said a boat's logbook would normally be considered to contain data covered by the law. However, she added: 'According to this exception, data users may consider retaining personal data in the logbooks if the logbooks are of historical interest to  the public.'
At least three boat owners have managed to keep their expired licences, but thousands of others have not considered the documents' potential historical importance  and have handed  them to the  department.
Sisters Doris and Charlotte Kwok saved the licence of their father's Ap Lei Chau-built oil barge after negotiating to donate the log to the  maritime museum.
Lawyer Paul Harris also managed to save the licence of his pleasure yacht 'Titanic'.
'It was the most unbelievable episode; I felt as if I was dealing with lunatics,' Mr Harris said.
'The man was about to take it away but I pulled it back off him from across the counter ...  They told me they would not license my boat until I surrendered the original document.
'Imagine if this had been done to the ships of Nelson's navy? All these books we have on boating will not be able to be written about Hong Kong.'
Don Brect, Hong Kong's first government records director, said the Marine Department's decision showed  a law  to introduce a comprehensive and transparent archiving policy was desperately needed.
'It doesn't mean that all records have to be kept, but that processes are clear and transparent and provide the opportunity for the records to be preserved rather than  destroyed at a bureaucrat's whim,' he said.
'Once material is lost, it's lost and you cannot bring it back.'
Senior government archivist Sarah Choy Cheung-ching  said her department had not been aware of the Marine Department's  initiative and had not been offered the logbooks.



Boat logbooks seized under privacy law