Integration of Court Custody Orders with Healthcare, School and Residential Records Systems

Mr Victor Lye asked the Minister for Law whether there are plans to develop a cross-agency system to ensure that custody orders issued by the Courts are automatically reflected across relevant Government platforms involving children, including healthcare, school and residential records.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: Orders relating to the custody, care and control of a child often contain sensitive and deeply private information, including information that may affect or prejudice the child if disclosed inappropriately or unnecessarily. Custody information therefore needs to be carefully handled and we should be careful about automatic dissemination across multiple platforms with different access rights.

Currently, parents have the discretion to inform the relevant Government agencies of the requisite custody, care and control orders. At the same time, relevant agencies are open to feedback on the situations where the advantages outweigh the risks of sharing such orders across different settings.