7/17/2020 CACV73/2020 JUNIOR POLICE OFFICERS’ ASSOCIATION OF THE HONG KONG POLICE FORCE AND ANOTHER v. ELECTORAL … “ (1) No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” 34. The Judge held at [44] of the Judgment that the right to privacy under BOR 14 is engaged in the systemic challenge. However, in the context of considering the standard of review in the application of the proportionality test, he took into account that the right of privacy is not amongst the most fundamental rights and only minimal personal information is divulged in the electoral register and the level of privacy attached to residential address is not high[8]. He also rejected the submission that there was a drastic limitation of the rights to privacy, family and home[9]. 35. With respect, there seems to be a conflation between the extent of incursion of the right of privacy and the consequences of such incursion. Whilst the Judge had at [38] of the Judgment correctly alluded to the right of privacy as a right to control one’s information, he failed to apply that approach in the subsequent analysis in the context of the disclosure of residential address by way of the publication of the register for inspection. 36. The facet of privacy interest which forms the subject matter in the Constitutional Challenge is the right to control the extent of dissemination of one’s residential address. As observed by the Judge at [41] of the Judgment, there is no doubt that the right to control the dissemination of such information is subject to the protection under the right to privacy. 37. It was submitted before us (and the Judge) that people from time to time give their residential address to others, whether for private or business or other purposes, including submitting addresses to public authorities in furtherance of certain public purposes (like the address of directors given to the Companies Registry, the address of a licence holder given to the Transport Department, the address of a landowner to the Land Registry). It is then argued from this that the privacy interest in one’s residential address is not high. https://legalref.judiciary.hk/lrs/common/search/search_result_detail_frame.jsp?DIS=128057&QS=%2B&TP=JU&ILAN=en 12/39

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