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Hong Kong national security law
OpinionLetters

LettersWith progress on Hong Kong’s national security law, city should turn to legislation on information access

  • Readers discuss the need for laws on preserving public records and ensuring information access, and the rising number of scams in the city

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Commuters walk past a sea of LED plastic flowers displayed at Tamar Park, Admiralty, which is bordered by the government headquarters, in February 2023. Photo: Yik Yeung-man
Letters
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I would like to commend the Hong Kong government for finally proposing a national security law to meet the city’s obligations. However, I would like to highlight that there are other important obligations that are still unmet by the government, which have an important impact because of the references to confidential documents in the proposals.

Unfortunately, despite the heroic efforts of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the Census and Statistics Department to make government data open and public, and despite the policy statements of the Carrie Lam administration, there are still many data sets and documents which remain locked up inside the Hong Kong government for no good reason and which should be made publicly available, as they could drive economic activity and improve policy analysis. I have reason to believe that some of these data sets have been lost forever, wasting millions of dollars in collection costs, let alone missing the benefits of reuse.

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This situation continues because Hong Kong still lacks laws covering public records and access to information, which would ensure that data sets and documents are retained as long as they have value and that, unless there is a good reason such as privacy or national security, they become available publicly rather than be assumed by default to be confidential.
It is now more than 10 years since the Law Reform Commission formed subcommittees to examine these issues and more than five years since there were public consultations, but there are still no reports or action.
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I call on the Hong Kong government to publish these reports and take prompt action to implement modern public records and access to information laws, ensuring that government information is not kept confidential without good reason and facilitating improved public policies and economic growth.

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