In a recent move, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance dismissed a judicial review challenging the regime requiring real-name registration for SIM card users. The court held the mechanism “not unreasonable” and saw no necessary intervention on its part.
The Telecommunications (Registration of SIM Cards) Regulation requires telecommunications companies to record customers’ identity card numbers, full English names, and dates of birth before activating a SIM card. A regulation that came into effect in March 2022 also limits one person to hold only ten pre-paid SIM cards, and on behalf of registered businesses, to 25 pre-paid SIM cards.
Hong Kong government justifies the necessity of this regime with the explanation that the unidentified status of pre-paid SIM cards raises the difficulty for law enforcement agencies in tracing suspects. It claims that these cards play a role in illegal activities like phone scams, e-shopping deceptions, and serious crimes such as human smuggling, homemade bombs, and terrorist activities.
The applicant argued that the government was failing to maintain a balance between users’ right to privacy and anonymousness, and the need to prevent and investigate crime. They warned of the risk of personal data breaches, thus infringement on users’ privacy rights.
Judge Coleman concluded that these factors were already under consideration during the implementation of the regulation. He ruled that drafting such regulations require a balancing act which should be handled by the legislature. As per him, the court only needs to intervene when the execution appears “unreasonable.”
Employing the legal standard termed Wednesbury unreasonableness, the court scrutinized the decisions of public bodies. If the court ascertains that no reasonable person could have made the decision, it can deem it as Wednesbury unreasonable and dismisses the act.
A Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card allows subscribers to receive calls and connect to mobile internet services on their mobile devices. The SIM card serves to identify and authenticate a subscriber’s access to a telecommunications service.