Lawmaker to force Octopus to disclose shared information

A lawmaker says he will invoke Legco's special powers to force Octopus Cards to disclose what kind of personal information about cardholders it shares with its business partners.

Unionist Wong Kwok-hing spoke out as new concerns arose about how the company ensures its business partners destroy their records of the personal details.

The smart-card issuer said last week that it would stop sharing new cardholders' data if they specified upon joining a reward scheme that they did not wish to receive promotional materials. However, the existing 2.4 million cardholders must call the company to revoke their consent to have private details shared.

Wong said that without knowing who and what kind of information Octopus had shared it was impossible to monitor whether those companies would really stop using the cardholders' personal data for their own benefit.

A woman claiming to be a former employee of Cigna - an insurance company that co-operates in the reward scheme - told Cable TV she had been required to pose as a representative from Octopus when selling products over the phone to scheme members. She said Cigna told her it had personal details for all the 2.4 million Octopus cardholders who joined the scheme.

Octopus Cards said it did not pass on all its clients' information to its partners. It only selected data for a particular promotional project and after the project ended the partners were supposed to destroy the data. Asked if the company had any way of ensuring its partners' compliance with this requirement, a spokesman said the companies were bound by a confidentiality agreement and Octopus also conducted regular on-site auditing of its partners. But Wong said there was neither any mechanism nor an independent body to verify whether that happened.