The Privacy Commissioner has completed a Privacy
Compliance Assessment Report on the Smart Identity Card System

1.    The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (“the Commissioner”) Mr. Roderick B. Woo today announced the completion of the Privacy Compliance Assessment (“PCA”) Report on the Smart Identity Card System.

2.    The Government through the Immigration Department (“ImmD”) has been issuing smart identity cards since 2003.  To ensure that all personal data held by the ImmD are handled in accordance with the requirements of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (“the Ordinance”), the Government had undertaken to the Legislative Council that it would ask the Commissioner to conduct a PCA on the Smart Identity Card System.

3.    The purpose of the PCA is to assess ImmD’s level of compliance with the requirements of the Ordinance, to identify potential weaknesses in ImmD’s data protection system, and to provide recommendations to ImmD for a review of its data protection system.

4.    To obviate any possible conflicts between the Commissioner’s role in carrying out the PCA and his regulatory role under the Ordinance, the PCA was conducted in accordance with the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) entered into between the Commissioner and the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) which acknowledged that the Commissioner’s statutory power to act as a regulator would not be prejudiced or compromised by the PCA.

5.    The Commissioner’s officers have examined thousands of pages of ImmD documents, visited 19 ImmD offices / control points, interviewed 333 smart identity card applicants, and obtained information from ImmD officers ranking from its Assistant Director to Immigration Assistants.  An on-site questionnaire survey was conducted in the course of the PCA.

6.    Pursuant to the MOU, the Commissioner has today presented the PCA Report to the Director who will no doubt consider its contents and submit the same to the Legislative Council in due course of time.

7.    The PCA Report is also available for download at http://www.pcpd.org.hk/english/publications/files/SMARTICS_PCA_report_e.pdf.


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