Editorial | Registration push for mobile phones must also respect privacy
- Authorities say they need another personal data bank to fight crime, but the worries of the innocent should be addressed and a balance struck to safeguard rights
Hong Kong belongs to a global minority of countries that do not maintain a database of all mobile phone users. As a result, of nearly 21 million mobile subscriptions, only users of service plans need to disclose real personal information. The remainder, 11.7 million, are anonymous prepaid SIM cards.
To level the playing field, agencies such as the police, immigration and Independent Commission Against Corruption would be able to obtain registration records without a warrant in urgent cases. Yau says this would not include listening in, though authority could be sought under covert surveillance laws.
That said, criminal misuse of unregistered mobile services involves only a tiny minority. Anonymity serves the right to privacy of law-abiding citizens but not prevention of crime by the few. The public has an interest in both. Privacy is unlikely to emerge unaffected from the resolution of the conflict. There is need to strive for the preservation of some balance that serves both.