The View | Open access to company registry information serves the public interest, outweighing privacy concerns

The government’s proposal to restrict access to information about company directors will encourage malpractice, and undermine the principles of accountability and transparency that lie at the heart of Hong Kong’s commercial life

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Pedestrians crossing the road in Hong Kong’s Central district in May last year are reflected in a window. The government’s proposal to restrict information access will damage Hong Kong’s reputation as a financial centre and should not be taken lightly. Photo: May Tse

Published: 3:30pm, 29 Apr 2021Updated: 3:30pm, 29 Apr 2021

On March 29, the government announced proposals to restrict general public access to company directors’ identity card numbers and residential addresses filed with the Companies Registry. Back in 2013, due to strong representations by many professional and commercial organisations during public consultation on similar proposals, such plans were shelved. At the time, I also opposed these proposals in a Post article, for reasons which are just as valid now as they were then.

First and foremost, they could adversely affect the principle of limited liability, which has been a central principle of Hong Kong’s commercial life since the first Companies Ordinance was enacted in 1865. Limiting an individual’s personal liability for corporate debts gives the shareholders who own the company the assurance that a corporate failure would not personally bankrupt them.

In return for this very significant protection, however, it is important that the interests of anyone who has dealings with the company is protected by the disclosure of key information about the directors who run the company, in particular their identities and how they can be contacted. As a consequence, directors have to surrender a degree of personal privacy.

The present government proposal is to restrict access to directors’ full identity card details and residential addresses. The proposals regarding identity cards have sparked a debate between the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Christopher Hui Ching-yu, and shareholder activist David Webb, as to what elements of a director’s identity card number can be omitted without creating uncertainty about directors’ identities if they have identical names.

Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui meets the press on April 23 last year. Hui told a Legco panel that even without the full identity card details, the probability of identity confusion between people with the same name would be very low, a statement shareholder activist David Webb disputed. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Even if the government is correct that this will not create great uncertainty in most instances, identity card numbers constitute unique identifiers. If a person undertaking a company search does not know the full identity card number, there will always be some uncertainty as to whether the director identified through a company search is, in fact, the target of the search.