Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of the HKSAR government, K C Chan, said Wednesday the city's government had ordered the electronic payment card company Octopus to deal with its management and corporate governance issues as soon as possible.

Chan said Hong Kong's chief Donald Tsang was concerned about the company leaking personal customer data and wanted the practice to stop. The company should offer a convenient channel for customers to retrieve their personal data or reconfirm their consent to release it soon.

The city's government has instructed representatives of the MTR Corporation on the Octopus board to co-operate with investigations by the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

The MTR, or Mass Transit Railway, operates the city's metro network. Octopus Card, Hong Kong's mass transit refill cards, is widely used in the city to pay public transportation fares, as well as retailers who accept Octopus, such as convenience stores or restaurants.

"We (told them) to reflect our view there should be proper handling and a decision taken on the revenue, and we leave the details to be decided by the board," Chan said.

On Tuesday, Octopus said its Special Committee had given approval for the appointment of Deloitte ToucheTomatsu (Deloitte), a professional services firm, to carry out an independent review of the data protection policies and practices of Octopus and its subsidiaries.

Deloitte was expected to complete the review in 10 weeks.

Octopus Holdings had admitted earlier that the Octopus Rewards scheme, launched four years ago and operated by two subsidiaries Octopus Rewards and Octopus Connect, sold the data of 1.97 million customers to its six partners in the scheme.

Some 95 percent of people in Hong Kong aged 16 to 65 use Octopus to travel, shop and dine, and over 2.4 million customers have registered for the widely adopted Octopus Rewards program, Octopus Holdings claimed on its website.

Octopus Cards is wholly owned by Octopus Holdings, whose shareholders are the major transport operators in Hong Kong, with the MTR Corporation the biggest at 57.4 percent.

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