Whether display on a notice board of the surname and part of the ID card number of an individual is in contravention of the Ordinance.
Q: We are an educational institute. As a data
user, it is always our concern to provide the best services and
convenience to our students. In order to further protect the students' personal data and cope with the requirements of the Ordinance,
we are considering to alter our format for displaying on notice
boards the students' personal identifiers. Instead of displaying
the full ID card numbers, we intend to draw out the first digits
from the ID Card number and add the student's surname as a reference
code for each student, for example:
A student named Chan Tai Man, ID Card No. is
A 123456(1), the reference code displayed on board or class use
will be : A1234CHAN.
Please let us know whether this proposal would
be in contravention of the Ordinance.
A: The relevant provisions of the Ordinance are those
of data protection principle 4 ("DPP4")
in Schedule 1. DPP4
requires that all reasonably practicable steps should be taken to
ensure that personal data (including data in a form in which access
to or processing of the data is not practicable) held by a data
user are protected against unauthorised or accidental access, processing,
erasure or other use. It appears to us that in general your proposal
meets this requirement.
As regards the Code, in paragraph 1.3 the
ID card number is defined as the personal identifier on an ID
card whether in its original or altered from. Further, pursuant
to paragraph 2.7 of the Code an ID card number and the name of
the holder should not be displayed publicly together or made visible
or otherwise accessible to persons without a need to carry out
activities related to permitted uses of the number. You propose
to make use of only the initial letter and first four digits of
an ID card number. In a broad sense this is still an altered form
of that number. However, this form of an ID card number ceases
to identify the relevant individual uniquely. Accordingly, it
is not a personal identifier and hence is not covered by the Code
which relates only to personal data that are personal identifiers.
On this basis, no issue of a contravention of paragraph 2.7 of
the Code in respect of your proposal arises.
Even if, contrary to our view, your altered
form of the ID card number amounts to a personal identifier, we
still do not consider that what you propose to do is inconsistent
with paragraph 2.7 of the Code. This is because the reference
to "name" in paragraph 2.7 of the Code is intended to mean the
name of an individual from which he or she is identifiable, not
merely a surname as you propose to display in the present case.
Finally, if the complete reference codes
assigned by you, i.e. surname plus part of the relevant ID card
number, themselves constitute personal identifiers, they will
be subject to Part IV of the Code. However, there is no provision
under Part IV prohibiting the use of personal identifier in the
way you propose.
