Financial Affairs Panel to Discuss Protection of Personal Information Provisions
On 9 April 2021, the Legislative Council’s Panel on Financial Affairs will discuss the proposed implementation of provisions to protect directors’ personal information from public inspection which are contained in the Companies Ordinance (Cap. 622). The proposals set out in LC Paper No. CB(1)737/20-21(07)1 envisage that subsidiary legislation implementing a phased introduction of the new inspection regime will be introduced to the Legislative Council for negative vetting in May 2021.
The Companies Register currently contains personal information which is made available for public inspection, such as directors’ usual residential addresses and full identification numbers and the full identification numbers of company secretaries and other individuals including (among others) liquidators and provisional liquidators. The personal information of directors is also open for public inspection on the registers kept by companies themselves. Division 7 of Part II of the Companies Ordinance sets out protections (not yet in operation) which would see only correspondence addresses and partial identification numbers available in the Companies Register for public inspection.
If implemented, the new regime will take effect in three phases:
Phase 1 – with immediate effect, companies will be able to withhold from public inspection in their own registers the usual residential addresses and full identification numbers (the Protected Information) of directors and company secretaries;
Phase 2 – with effect from October 2022, the Companies Registry will be able to protect from public inspection the Protected Information contained in all documents thereafter filed for registration; and
Phase 3 – with effect from December 2023, individuals will be able to apply to the Companies Registry for protection from public inspection of their Protected Information contained in documents already registered with the Companies Registry before October 2022.