The head of the government's watchdog on covert surveillance wants the power to conduct random spot checks of intercepted audio recordings conducted by law enforcers - a power it has been denied.
Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing, the commissioner on interception of communications and surveillance, yesterday urged the Legislative Council to permit such spot checks 'as soon as possible', because his agency now must rely purely on law-enforcement agencies' voluntary reports of non-compliance.
Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong said in Legco yesterday the Security Bureau would compile a review report on the proposal by the first half of next year and submit a bill some time next year.
The proposal would require law enforcement agencies to preserve the results and records of every interception, to enable the watchdog to listen to intercepted audio recordings in cases of specific interest or chosen at random, the commissioner said yesterday.
The watchdog used to listen to intercepted recordings after a law was enacted in 2006. But in 2008, the administration raised doubts about the legitimacy of listening to recordings intercepted in wiretaps, and the agency was forced to stop.
The doubts stemmed from a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008, stating that such a law did not entitle the privacy commissioner there to compel production of documents over which lawyer-client privileges were claimed.
In his latest annual report, last year, Woo said that his inability to listen to recordings in recent cases was 'far from satisfactory'.