Picture this scenario: you are strolling down the street one day when a police officer stops you and asks for your identity card. Feeling you have nothing to hide, you produce it and he inputs the number into a hand-held machine.
Within seconds, a full profile of you appears: name, birth date, immigration, financial, marital and professional status, driving, criminal, tax, medical and dental records, religious or political affiliation, what films and books you have recently rented - even your credit card expenditure. The officer returns your ID card to you with a perturbed look, possibly based on your choice of movies or a medical condition you would have rather kept to yourself. You walk away, arguably unharmed, yet feeling uncomfortably exposed.
This was no futuristic proposition; the technology and infrastructure exists today for such a scenario to play out. For every plastic card in your wallet - your ID card, driver's licence, hospital and dental card, library card, movie club membership, credit cards and memberships to professional, recreational, religious or political clubs - there exists a database of information, and it is all too easy to network the data to create an all-encompassing sketch of your life.
In places like the United States, personal information is a saleable commodity with high returns from eager advertisers and marketing firms, among others. All that stands between US-style compilation of personal data, the scenario painted above and present-day Hong Kong is reams of regulations and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data. But is it enough?
Exactly what information does a police officer access when he or she checks an ID card from someone on the street? And what does that immigration officer see on the screen when you are going through non-biometric clearance at the airport? Would you be automatically stopped if you forgot to pay your taxes on time, or if you had an outstanding court fine?
A spokesman for the Immigration Department said what immigration officers currently see at first glance of their screen as you pass through border checkpoints is relatively minimal - mainly just the data on ID cards, such as conditions of stay and date of birth.
