Leo Goodstadt, Regina Connolly and Frank Bannister
devising a solution under Article 24 of the Basic Law which conferred a clear legal right to residence in Hong Kong that was not to be enjoyed by the rest of the nation and that included the right not only to public services, but also to participate in its political affairs 5.
3.3 Function and scope of the card today
The identity card is at the heart of the Hong Kong citizen’ s relationship both with the state and major providers of goods and services. Personal identity itself became a matter of official definition. The Chinese man or woman traditionally had a variety of names. The identity card could only serve its purpose if the choice of names and any alteration in the registered name could be strictly controlled( Fang and Heng 1983). The role of the identity card in the individual’ s life expanded dramatically in 1980 when the government claimed that a surge of immigrants from the Chinese mainland had reached levels that were threatening the employment opportunities of Hong Kong’ s legitimate residents, swamping available social services and disrupting law and order( Goodstadt, 2009b). Identity cards were seen as a crucial weapon in halting this influx. Henceforward, everyone would be required to carry an identity card at all times and produce it on demand to any police or immigration officer. In addition, all employers would face criminal penalties for employing any person without a valid identity card 6.
The identity card’ s initial function as an official document for the purpose of establishing the individual’ s status as a legitimate resident of Hong Kong and to facilitate all dealings with the government and its agencies then underwent a transformation as the private sector quickly grasped the convenience of the card in dealing with its customers. Banks, for example, insisted on using the identity card in transactions with depositors well before the introduction of legal requirements to verify a bank customer’ s identity to suppress money laundering. The card was routinely photocopied by solicitors and other professionals when drawing up contracts, wills and all property transactions. Access to modern office and residential buildings increasingly required the recording of a person’ s identity card particulars. The community, for the most part, was reassured by this development because it reduced the danger of fraud, misrepresentation and identity theft. Indeed, the card was embraced with such enthusiasm that the statutory Privacy Commission felt obliged to introduce codes to restrict the unnecessary use of identity card information acquired by employers, banks and others, even in the absence of significant public complaints about such practices( Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data 2012).
3.4 Reflections on the success of the card
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places on the planet( Abbas 1994; Rooney 2003). For this and other reasons, the potential loss of privacy that an identity card represents has an additional and troubling dimension in the context of Hong Kong. The universality and efficiency of the identity card system offers the state a powerful tool for the surveillance and potential control of the individual. In the case of Hong Kong, citizen mistrust of the Chinese Communist Party’ s record was so strong prior to China’ s resumption of sovereignty in 1997 that by the middle of that decade some 600,000 people – over 10 per cent of the total population – had emigrated to democratic countries. On the other hand, the holder of the personal identity card was in a privileged position compared with the rest of China’ s citizens. For example, the right to reside in the colony under British rule conferred insulation from political demands, especially in the mass campaigns of the Maoist era. In addition, Hong Kong’ s public services, earnings and personal consumption have been long been superior to those elsewhere in China, so resistance to adoption of a Hong Kong identity card would disqualify an individual from its higher standard of living and from its modern social services, medical and educational in particular.
Nonetheless, the identity card remains an ambivalent symbol of this superiority as these rights are at the mercy of the Chinese authorities. For example, 1999, in circumstances of considerable legal and constitutional controversy, these rights were removed from 1.675 million individuals who had hitherto possessed a valid claim to a Hong Kong identity, a move which has caused much distress( Newendorp 2008). At the same time, the government, before and after 1997, has been careful to avoid giving the public any commitment that the identity card, and the right to residence that it confers, creates an entitlement to public services above the minimum that the wider community will tolerate. The smart identity cards were introduced during a decade 5
http:// www. basiclaw. gov. hk / text / en / basiclawtext / chapter _ 3. html 6 Sir Murray( later Lord) MacLehose, Governor, Hong Kong Hansard, 23 October 1980, pp. 104‐6.
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