Hong Kong Media Law

Several new reviews of Hong Kong Media Law have been published. They include:

In an article “Hong Kong Media Law Explained,” by Chris Dillon in the June/July 2008 issue of The Correspondent, a publication of the Foreign Correspondents Club Hong Kong, the book was lauded as “an accessible guide” that would be “particularly useful for correspondents who have recently arrived in Hong Kong or China and are trying to get their bearings.”  The review also said the book would be “of interest to non-journalists, whether they are citizens trying to understand the peculiarities of Hong Kong’s copyright laws, public figures confronting the paparazzi or just people who are curious about the mechanics of Hong Kong’s broadcast regulations.”

In the July 2008 issue of Communications_Lawyer of the American Bar Association, reviewer Kyu Ho Youm wrote that Hong Kong Media Law was “truly the first of its kind in the recent past” and was “a singularly important addition to the increasing body of country-specific media law books in Asia.” Youm described the book as ”valuable to working journalists and media lawyers” and cited the “scholarly merit” as “substantial.”

In the Spring 2008 issue of Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly, Jane Kirtley described the book as “meticulous yet highly readable.” Kirtley concluded: “For scholars or legal practitioners interested in a concise summary of the law, Hong Kong Media Law is a useful resource. For journalists who plan to go to Beijing to cover the Olympics, it is a necessity.”

For a full list of other reviews for Hong Kong Media Law, click here.

In the June 2008 issue of Privacy Laws and Business, Doreen Weisenhaus writes about how the latest personal data breaches in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia are prompting calls for reform of existing laws.  The article (\”Hong Kong DP reform calls: Data breaches and Internet sex scandals in Hong Kong and other Asian countries\”) details some of the dozens of data leaks and losses to hit Hong Kong in recent months, including those of confidential government information, hospital and banking records and private photos of consensual sexual acts by adults.

Weisenhaus writes that “while incidents of data leaks and losses are not new in Hong Kong or worldwide, the frequency and extent of this latest wave…are threatening to become the biggest personal data crisis since the city’s personal data protection law became effective in 1996.”

She also cites similar controversies in South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan.