Privacy watchdog says HKEAA overcharging for exam papers allegations ‘unsubstantiated’

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog completed its investigations into four cases of complaints about excessive fees imposed by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority for accessing marking records and examination scripts and found that the allegations were unsubstantiated.

According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, the four complainants were candidates for the 2023 Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination.

The four considered that in view of the change in the form of provision of requested data, the fee imposed for accessing the data should be reduced.

Starting from the 2023 examination, data access requester will not be provided with a hard copy of the requested data, but will be provided with an email containing a password and a link for downloading the requested personal data, including marking records and examination scripts.

Yet the complainants noted that the fee imposed by the HKEAA for the first data access application was reduced by only HK$20, from HK$400 to HK$380, which violates the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, that stipulates no fee imposed for complying with a data access request shall be excessive. 

Following the investigation, Ada Chung Lai-ling, Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, found that the fees imposed by the HKEAA for complying with the data access requests were lower than the necessary and directly related costs incurred in complying with the request - which included labor costs and computer operating time costs.

As such, the Privacy Commissioner found that the fees imposed by the HKEAA were not excessive and the HKEAA had not contravened the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.