Who let the cat out of the bag? Internet data leakage and its implications for privacy law and policy in Hong Kong

The cat is out of the bag and there is no putting it back. On Friday, 10 Marchthe South Morning China Post reported that 20,000 complaint files againstthe Hong Kong police were freely accessible on the Internet on the websitewww.china2easy.com. Included in the complaint files were the names,addresses, and identification numbers of complainants, the dates of the complaints, and in a few instances, details of previous criminal convictions. Some of the more serious cases involved corruption, fraud, and sexual abuse. Of the cases disclosed, seven are still being investigated. While the information on the website was quickly removed, the information could still be accessed several days later via the Google Archives and Cache. It soon became apparent that this information had been leaked and made available on the Internet some three years earlier, although it was only recently that it was tripped upon and the situation exposed by shareholder activist David Webb. The full extent of the damage sustained by the complainants and the greater Hong Kong community has yet to be assessed.