| Wong Chun Ah Senior Immigration Officer Birth, Death, and Marriage Records Section Hong Kong Immigration Department Immigration Tower 15th Floor Wan Chai, Hong Kong Tel: 2829 3577 Fax: 2824 0417 |
Hong Kong, 12 June 2003 |
Ref No.: L/M (40) in BDM 53/1/16
Dear Mr. Wong,
Thank you for your response, but I fear your office's response,
although worthy, would be of little use, as the cost in time
and money to track down previous HKCEE candidates by the method
you suggest would be phenomenal.
Since our last communication I have been in close communication
with the HKEAA (Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority).
Like you, they have problems with the release of confidential
information related to individual Hong Kong citizens. In order
to get around this dilemma please consider the following step-by-step
procedure and think about other ways to achieve the same task,
in the event that what I propose would be incovenient:
1) Perform a random search by age of all Hong Kong citizens between the ages of 15 and 30 for each of the years between 1978 and 2002. Each sample for each year would include between 300 to 600 individuals.
2) Produce a mail merge file with the names, addresses, and Hong Kong ID numbers for each individual obtained in the random search performed in step one.
3) Produce a mailing label for each individual identified in step 2 that can be pasted on envelops bearing the Immigration Department's and/or EARTH's seal. No return address would be necessary.
4) Receive from EARTH
a) payment for the random search, envelops and address labels, or payment for the random search and address labels and a large batch of EARTH's own supplied envelops, and
b) copies of the following items equal in number to the number of Hong Kong residents generated by the random samplings in step 1:
- a letter of introduction to the HKLNA-Project explaining the nature of the project and the Immigration Department's role in the project,
- a letter of endorsement from the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) encouraging Hong Kong citizens to participate in the project,
- a formal invitation to participate in the project, and
- a prestamped return envelop either to EARTH, HKU, or the Department of Immigration.
5) Set aside a large room that could accommodate enough people to stuff the envelops.
6) Either receive payment from EARTH for your own staff to stuff the envelops, or allow EARTH to provide sufficient staff to perform the same task on a designated day and at specified time.
7) Receive payment from EARTH to deposit the sealed envelops with the Hong Kong post office and deposit them.
8) Repeat steps 3 to 7 between three to four times with increasingly fewer numbers of labels, envelops, mail fillers, and staff required for each repetition.
If the above steps are followed, the confidential information
provided by the Immigration Office would never be seen by EARTH
and would be deposited directly at the Hong Kong post office.
Whereupon it would be sent directly to those individuals whose
names and addressess were obtained in step 1.
In this manner the privacy of individual Hong Kong citizens would
be protected, the Immigration Department would behave in accordance
with the law, EARTH would obtain its requisite voluntary responses,
and all of Hong Kong and a large number of people in the world's
scientific community would benefit from the results of the completed
study.
Your timely response and continued cooperation would be most
appreciated.
Sincerely,
R. A. Stegemann
HKLNA-Project Director
cc:
Ian Chu, Division Head, Information System Services Division,
Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority
Robert Chung, Programme Director, Popular Opinion Programme,
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong
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