interference with the rights guaranteed by article 17 and which in some cases made it a criminal offence for a Government agency or private person to interfere with rights under that article.
29.
In particular, police powers to search persons and property were carefully circumscribed in legislative provisions. For example, under section 54 of the Hong Kong Police Force Ordinance, a police officer could stop and search a person only when he had a reasonable suspicion that that person had committed an offence or was about to do so. A wider power was provided by section 33 of the Public Order Ordinance, under which a police officer could stop and search any person in a public place to ascertain whether that person was carrying an offensive weapon. The power was limited, however, by Police General Orders, which prohibited the police from stopping and searching any person unless they had reasonable cause to believe that he was carrying such a weapon. Failure to comply with that order could render a police officer liable to disciplinary proceedings.
30. Under section 50 of the Hong Kong Police Force Ordinance, a police officer could enter private premises without the permission of the owner or occupier only if he had reason to believe that a person whose arrest was sought had entered such premises, or in execution of a warrant issued by a magistrate to search for an article believed to be of assistance in solving a crime. Before such a warrant could be issued, the magistrate must be satisfied that there was reasonable cause to suspect that the article was in the premises concerned. A police officer who failed strictly to comply with those provisions would be subject to a civil claim for damages and to disciplinary proceedings. Similar control provisions existed in the laws of other territories, and the Constitutions of some of them for example, sections 7 and 9 of the Bermuda Constitution, sections 7 and 10 of the Gibraltar Constitution, sections 8 and 10 of the Falkland Islands Constitution and sections 73 and 75 of the Turks and Caicos Islands Constitution contained specific, detailed provisions guaranteeing the rights referred to in article 17 of the Covenant.
31.
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Mr. MOMMERSTEEG said that he had participated in the work of the Working Group on article 40, and he associated himself with all the questions asked by members of the Committee. Paragraph 10 of the Committee's general comment 16 (32), on article 17 of the Covenant, relating to personal data, might be relevant to the situation in the dependent territories, and particularly in Hong Kong, which had the largest population of all those territories and was the most advanced in the field of electronics and computers. It could be seen from that paragraph that protection in that area was a matter of major concern to the Committee, and he asked what kind of personal data could be stored in computers and who could hold such information. States had to take effective measures to ensure that such data did not come into the hands of unauthorized persons and were never used for purposes incompatible with the Covenant. Every individual should have the right to know what kind of information was kept on him, for what purposes it was used, who had control of it, whether it included any incorrect data and whether it had been collected or processed unlawfully, and to request the amendment or elimination of inaccurate data. He asked what was the situation in the dependent territories in that regard.