Police Group Wins Fight To Keep Poll Register Secret

Hong Kong's largest police association has won a court bid to prevent election officials from releasing personal details of those registered to vote in next month's district council polls, after arguing that the safety of officers and their families would be put in jeopardy.

The Junior Police Officers' Association, which has more than 25,000 members, said the usual practice of allowing the public to access the register would enable people to link voters' names to their addresses.

It told the Court of Appeal that this could exacerbate the problem of "doxxing", with police officers and their families having their personal information leaked online in recent months, leading to bullying and safety fears amid the ongoing anti-government protests.

The group's injunction bid was unsuccessful in a lower court last week. But on Tuesday the Court of Appeal found in its favour, saying a just and fair balance needs to be struck to address immediate privacy concerns, while ensuring the integrity of the district council elections.

The court ordered that public access to the register be blocked and that only confirmed candidates in the November 24 polls should be allowed to scrutinise the information.

Justices Jeremy Poon and Johnson Lam said they don't think it could be seriously suggested that electoral authorities rely solely or heavily on the public to detect election malpractice, and a wider dissemination of voter details would carry the risk of such information being misused.

The judges noted this was not a "fanciful risk" and said the availability of the information contained in the register would "greatly facilitate and intensify doxxing against specific police officers and their families".

They said "doxxing should not and cannot be tolerated in Hong Kong", but unfortunately, amid the current turmoil there are people who too readily resort to these "heinous practices".