Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Patrick Nip, at a media session today (April 9) at the Central Government Offices on the latest situation of the search by the Registration and Electoral Office (REO) for a Register of Electors relating to the 2016 Legislative Council (LegCo) General Election:
 
Reporter: Mr Secretary, over the weekend you called this incident unacceptable, so what steps are being taken now in going forward to address the situation? This is the second time electors' data have been lost in recent years. Do you have confidence in the leadership of the REO?
 
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: As I said, this incident is of course unacceptable so we have taken proactive ways to handle the matter and we will handle it in a very serious manner. So the follow-up actions we are going to do - as I said - the REO has already reported the incident to the Police, and also notified the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data. The REO will also notify the affected electors about the incident and issue letters to government departments and organisations which have frequent contact or handling of personal data so that they are aware of the incident. Also, the REO will review the voter registration information of about 8,000 affected electors and if there were unusual changes to their registrations, the REO will take proactive steps to contact the concerned electors, verify the registrations and follow up as appropriate.
 
     The REO will compile and submit a full report to my bureau and also to the Electoral Affairs Commission on the incident. If, arising from the investigation, there are deliberate cover-up or human errors involved, we would act in strict accordance with the established disciplinary mechanism. Apart from that, the Electoral Affairs Commission will also conduct an investigation on the incident and try to locate problems and loopholes related to the electoral arrangements and also the management within the REO, and would suggest improvement measures. We would take forward these various steps earnestly and also in a very serious manner.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
 

Ends/Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Issued at HKT 19:38

NNNN