They left the vehicle together but it was not clear whether it was a taxi, hired car or a private car.

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After the video went viral, Hui broke down in tears at a press conference on Tuesday evening, apologising for hurting those who love him and begging the public to give him time to regain his lost soul.

“I would like to say it from the bottom of my heart to everybody that I am sorry. My deep apologies to my family, my friends and those who love me. I have done something irreparable and unforgivable … I am sorry, Sammi,” he said.

Cheng, 46, dubbed the queen of Canto-pop, has a concert in the city in July.

Hui, who married Cheng in 2014 after an on-and-off relationship for more than two decades, admitted he had consumed a lot of alcohol that had caused him to lose his sense of mind and have some “lecherous thoughts”.

“But I know this is absolutely not an excuse. I deeply regret it … I feel I am very disgusting, revolting and strange,” he said.

“I have made those around me suffer so much. I really hope those who are hurt by me are well.”

Hui said he would suspend all his work until he “recovers his true self”.

“At this moment I am a person without soul,” he said. “I am a rotten person.”

Former privacy commissioner and barrister Allan Chiang Yam-wang said the vehicle driver and Apple Daily ran the risk of breaching the city’s privacy law, which took into account some key legal principles no matter which type of vehicle or organisation.

“First of all, the driver needs to notify the passengers there is a camera inside the vehicle so they can choose not to get on the car. Failure to do so is already a breach of the privacy law,” Chiang said.

“Secondly, does the driver have a lawful ground to collect the personal data? A legitimate reason such as for the sake of his profession to take the video without the parties’ consent.”

Chiang said the third factor was whether the collection of personal data was fair to the parties.

“If the video allows other people to easily identify the filmed parties’ identities, the driver runs a higher risk of breaching the privacy law,” he said.

He pointed out Apple Daily also ran a legal risk for circulating the video unless it could prove to the privacy commissioner it was doing so in the public interest.

However, Chiang said that only the affected parties could launch a complaint to the privacy commissioner, who would first issue an enforcement notice to the offender advising him to stop the illegal act.

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Only if the offender breached the privacy law again would the commissioner institute a prosecution against him.

Privacy Commissioner Stephen Wong said a taxi was defined as a semi-private place and a driver should abide by the privacy law if a camera was installed.

A Transport Department spokesman said a guideline was being drafted for the taxi sector regarding installing such devices in their vehicles because of privacy concerns.

Civic Party lawmaker Jeremy Tam Man-ho, who is also a member for the government-appointed Committee on Taxi Service Quality, warned there must be proper security measures to prevent cabbies from gaining access to the personal data of their passengers.

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“Drivers would be easily tempted into sharing videos of famous people caught on their cameras,” he said.

“There must be some security measures to make sure that drivers could not easily gain access to the passengers’ personal data. I have proposed that the memory stick could be installed into the taxi’s meter or officially encrypted so the content is only accessible to law enforcement agencies,” he said.