'HK Authorities Have Long Abused Computer Charge'

Legislators have urged the government to start working on changes to the law after the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) ruled that a computer-related offence, used to prosecute people for a number of very different crimes, cannot be slapped on suspects as some kind of "one-size-fits-all" charge.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had deemed the charge of "obtaining access to a computer with a view to dishonest gain" to be suitable for crimes ranging from fraud to upskirt photography.

But Thursday's court judgement made it clear that there is no dishonest access involved if someone uses their own phone or computer to commit a crime.

Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung, who is also a barrister, said there have been complaints for years that the authorities were wrongfully using the charge against suspects.

"It has been criticised by the legal profession and the IT profession that section 161 of the Crimes Ordinance has been abused by the DOJ and the law enforcement agencies. The law itself was passed in an era before the smartphone. It is not supposed to be targeted at people using their own phones or computers to commit something that is illegal," Yeung said.

"Over the past decade, we have seen a number of cases where the law enforcement agencies and the Department of Justice used this charge against people using their own phones committing crimes. And this is wrong. It's just unfortunate that over the past decade, there were no cases reaching the top level, that is the CFA."

Yeung said that prosecutors will no longer be able to make use of the charge in the way they had before, and therefore the government should look at amending the law.

"The Security Bureau has the duty and the responsibility to think of new legislation targeted at similar offences in the future," he said.

Pro-establishment legislator and barrister Priscilla Leung also agreed that changes to the law are now required, saying there had been some ambiguity surrounding the computer charge.