Well done Transport Dept!
My new year’s resolution was to try to be more positive, so let me say I *LOVE LOVE LOVE* the new licence plate search system for journalists. It’s like using a smart AI interface: there’s no form required, you just send an email to the commissioner (who has promised to read every single one personally) and best of all, unlike searching corporate records which costs an arm and a leg, it’s completely free!
Well done to all involved.
Now, it would be great if someone at Transport Department would figure out a way to actually reply to the requests.
I have six outstanding from the launch of the new “system”, a mix of investigative, news and feature reporting1: two are vanity plates breaking records at auction. Two are part of a long-term investigation I’m running into a lawmaker’s potentially suspicious “register of interests” – I’ve observed the lawmaker driving both vehicles and I’ve wanted to run down the plates for some time. The other two involve bad driving: I wanted to track down the Mercedes driver who blocked an ambulance at Waterloo Road Fire Station two weeks ago (now feels like about a hundred years ago) and I’d like to speak to the owner of the taxi in which two passengers tragically died in Wan Chai on 14 January.
These requests were all submitted correctly to the Commissioner of Transport as urgent requests, the first on 10 January 2024. They’re all newsworthy and legitimate. But I’ve had no response to any of them other than form replies acknowledging each request as “Exceptional Circumstances”.
OK. Doing basic journalism is not “exceptional circumstances”. If I am doing my job properly, under normal circumstances, I would want to run a couple of plates every week (if transitjam.com daily news was still alive we would be requesting several every day). “Exceptional circumstances” would be denying journalists access to the database after the High Court ruled otherwise.
And even if the results do come in (I’ll bet even money they won’t), waiting over two weeks (so far) for a response is absurd. Aside from my long-term lawmaker investigation, these news searches have a pretty short shelf-life – I’m sure nobody really cares about the ambulance blocker by now, ditto the vanity plate purchases. The moment has passed. Journalists need this information by return. The records are available instantaneously online for non-journalists2 , so why the “exceptional circumstances” for reporters?
Of course the government has legitimate and genuine concerns on doxing or mis-use of the data but there’s already privacy and libel laws protecting vehicle owners.
No, we all know the reasons for the secrecy. Identifying illegal street racers as cops and lawmakers or tycoons as corrupt does not gel with “telling good Hong Kong stories”. It’s not in the interests of the government for journalists to be able to more quickly investigate people like Slaughter & May’s China competition partner Natalie Yeung who was fined just a few thousand dollars for “careless driving” after speeding her BMW on Shek O Road and killing a female hiker3. Keeping reporters in the dark for as long as possible is the key to a happy harmonious society.
Watch your backs
Something important to bear in mind, which I’ve not seen in any media covering this, is that Transport Department also this year changed the rules regarding notification of vehicle owners.
If you now search for a plate, they will warn the vehicle owner by email, including alerting the owner to your personal details. This email warning service was previously “opt in” for vehicle owners (and given how many drivers don’t even know about highly-publicized initiatives like e-toll, it’s unlikely more than a handful of people ever signed up for this little-known feature) but is now applied to all search cases. So, reporters, if you search someone, the vehicle owner will know about it and the government will disclose to them your address and ID card.
This, of course, raises not only security and safety issues for reporters (one might think twice about running a suspected triad plate) and will also hamper investigative work by warning those under investigation.
And again, this is all, presumably, by design. Congratulations, Hong Kong government, for such great leadership and execution!
I’ve stopped at six while waiting to see if there’s any point.
For anyone new here asking “well why not just pretend to be a car purchaser and get the info you need instantly?”, please see Bao Choy’s original conviction for why this is not a good idea.
Police outrageously sided with the lawyer, who earns around $30 million a year, saying the road is a notorious accident blackspot and that trees impair the view of the road. I would say all those factors should mean a harsh prosecution for speeding as “dangerous driving” with a jail sentence, not be used as an excuse for the poor hiker’s death.