"Extend Criminal Record Check To All Talent Schemes"

People applying for Hong Kong's Top Talent Pass scheme had to begin declaring any criminal record from Wednesday, with one lawmaker saying the requirement should be extended to all visas offered on the basis of talent.

The administration announced the requirement for criminal record declarations on Tuesday as it stripped controversial genetic scientist He Jiankui of the visa he received under the scheme. He was given a three-year jail sentence in 2019 for illegal medical practices involving gene editing of human embryos.

Lawmaker William Wong said on an RTHK programme that the initial application procedure had been inadequate, but the government had acted quickly to resolve the matter.

Wong, who is also associate dean of engineering at the Chinese University, said the government could require applicants to seek certificates from their local authorities to show that they have no criminal record, adding that academics generally do not hire people with a criminal record.

The legislator said the requirement should apply to all schemes offering visas on the basis of talent.

"When importing talented people, you would want the person to be relatively honest and reliable. The applicant number is not small. We are not short of applicants anyway. Why don't we be more selective?"

Wong also called on the authorities to further clarify the circumstances of the He Jiankui case, including what category of the scheme he was granted a visa under, and on what basis.

The Top Talent Pass scheme is open to people who have earned a salary of HK$2.5 million or above in the past year, or those who graduated from the world's top 100 universities and who have at least three years of work experience over the past five years.

DAB lawmaker Edmund Wong said on the same programme that the administration had good intentions to lure talent, but the fact the new scheme was based on a simpler mechanism than previous talent visas might have been responsible for the incident.

"Under the current mechanism, we approve the applications quickly. Authorities even said some cases only take one day to approve," Wong said, adding that authorities should make spot checks on applicants.