First published: 31st December 2008
An article in Out-Law.com, a website specialising in IT and e-commerce legal issues, referenced a Hong Kong privacy case when discussing "Is filming someone in the street a breach of privacy?". The discussion comes during the public consultation on the review of the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (COIAO) and almost coincides with another Police investigation into nude (actually topless) photos on the internet. All this attention on obscenity and privacy is a reflection of the pressures that the massive growth in information and communications is putting on Society's morals and attitudes.
The Out-Law article reports that a 40-year-old woman is suing a Croatian TV station after it filmed her in public and then featured her in a documentary about obesity. It notes that UK law on this is unclear, but cites the "Japanese Mushroom Head" case in Hong Kong earlier this year, where a woman was photographed without her knowledge and featured in a magazine article that ridiculed her dress sense.
The case currently under investigation by Hong Kong Police involves images of a bare-chested woman posing in various public locations in Tai Po (大埔) published on a uwants.com forum. It has been classified as a case of publishing an indecent article, although it was in an adult area of the forum. This type of exhibitionism has been enabled by the internet, and it is another area where Society's morals are struggling to catch up.
It is clear that different people hold a wide range of views on what personal information (including images) they want to record and, optionally, make public, and the view might change according to the circumstances. Similarly, there are many views on public decency and obscenity, and the location can change the standards. In the current situation, laws intended for other purposes are sometimes used to try to address these emerging issues. In the Edison Chen scandal, copyright law is being used against the perpetrators, but copyright was originally intended as a trade: creators get exclusive rights for a limited period and Society benefits from the creations when copyright expires and they pass into the public domain. Why should that be used for images that were intended solely for private enjoyment?
The issues surrounding privacy, copyright and obscenity are interwoven, and directly affect free speech, as these examples show, so the review of the COIAO is flawed because it considers just one of these in isolation.
