Hong Kong Journalists Association v Commissioner for Transport is a 2026 Hong Kong judicial review decision concerning journalists' access to personal information in the government's Register of Vehicles and the relationship between freedom of the press and the right to privacy.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) challenged a policy introduced by the Transport Department in January 2024 under which applications for vehicle particulars made for journalistic purposes had to be considered under an exceptional-circumstances procedure, referred to by the court as the "Public Interest Route", rather than the "Automatic Route" available for specified purposes. The policy was introduced following the Court of Final Appeal's decision in , which quashed the conviction of journalist Choy Yuk-ling for making allegedly false statements when obtaining vehicle-registration information while investigating the 2019 Yuen Long attack.

Coleman J (as he then was) dismissed the HKJA's challenge on all five grounds. The court held that the policy engaged both freedom of expression and freedom of the press and vehicle owners' privacy, and applied a "double proportionality" analysis under which neither right was presumed to take priority over the other. Coleman held that requiring journalistic applications to undergo additional scrutiny was a proportionate means of protecting privacy and did not amount to a blanket denial of access for bona fide journalism. JURIST described the judgment as treating the policy as a compromise between press freedom and vehicle owners' privacy.

The court nevertheless held that part of the Transport Department's description of the statutory purposes of the Register was erroneous and should be corrected. In a postscript, Coleman stated that the lengthy processing times experienced by some early journalistic applicants should not continue once the initial problems of implementing the policy had passed, and that properly credentialed journalists giving cogent reasons should ordinarily have their applications assessed without a delay of many weeks.

Background

Vehicle register and journalistic searches

The Commissioner for Transport is required to maintain a Register of Vehicles under the Road Traffic Ordinance and the Road Traffic (Registration and Licensing of Vehicles) Regulations. The register contains 18 categories of information, including a vehicle's registration mark, the registered owner's full name and residential address, identity-document information and particulars concerning the vehicle itself.

Before January 2024, the Transport Department's policy was that, upon payment of the prescribed fee, a certificate containing vehicle particulars would be supplied to an applicant. Administrative measures introduced in 2003 asked applicants to state the purpose of a search, but journalists and news organisations had long used the register for newsgathering.

The government had considered restricting access to vehicle-owner information in 2011 in order to enhance privacy protection and ensure that personal data was properly used, but the proposed changes were not implemented.

HKSAR v Choy Yuk Ling

Choy Yuk-ling, then a contracted journalist for RTHK, obtained vehicle particulars while making an episode of the investigative programme Hong Kong Connection concerning the events in Yuen Long on 21 July 2019. Her investigation concerned a vehicle suspected of having been used to transport weapons to people involved in the incident.

Under the online application system then in force, applicants were required to select a purpose from a menu. Choy selected "other traffic and transport related matters". She was subsequently convicted of two counts under section 111(3)(a) of the Road Traffic Ordinance on the basis that her actual purpose was investigative journalism and that the selection was therefore false. She was fined HK$6,000.

The Court of Final Appeal quashed the convictions in June 2023. It held that "other traffic and transport related matters" was a broadly worded catch-all category capable of encompassing Choy's bona fide journalistic investigation into the use of the vehicle. The Court of Final Appeal preferred the broader construction partly because it gave effect to the constitutionally protected freedom of speech and of the press.

The Court of Final Appeal did not, however, accept that regulation 4(2) imposed an absolute obligation on the Commissioner to disclose vehicle particulars to anyone who paid the prescribed fee regardless of the purpose of the request. It held that the Commissioner was responsible for managing personal data contained in the register, could require applicants to identify the purpose for which information was sought, and could limit the purposes for which vehicle particulars would be supplied.

2024 policy

Following Choy Yuk Ling, the government announced that it would review the procedure for issuing certificates of vehicle particulars. A new policy was announced on 5 January 2024 and implemented on 8 January. Media coverage described the change as introducing additional hurdles for journalists seeking vehicle information.

The new policy provided two routes for obtaining information. Applications satisfying specified conditions or purposes could be processed through what Coleman later called the "Automatic Route". Other applications, including those made for journalistic purposes, could be considered under an exceptional-circumstances procedure called the "Public Interest Route". The Department of Justice later summarised the policy as requiring journalistic applications to proceed through the Public Interest Route because journalism did not fall within the specified purposes or general conditions for automatic processing.

Under the Public Interest Route, applicants were required to explain the reasons for seeking the information and the public interest involved, provide supporting material where appropriate, and address matters including whether the information was obtainable by alternative means and how the requested particulars would be used. The Commissioner was required to consider whether the public interest in disclosure outweighed the registered owner's privacy and the rights and interests of other persons and society as a whole.

Journalistic activity was not itself one of the specified purposes permitting automatic access. The HKJA argued that this subjected reporters to greater prior scrutiny, additional criteria, greater complexity and potentially substantial delay. In April 2024, the South China Morning Post reported that no applications by journalists had been approved during the first three months of the new regime.

In July 2024, before the Court of First Instance had determined the HKJA's challenge, legal scholar Mei Ning Yan in the article journal Amicus curiae argued that the Court of Final Appeal's decision had been "overturned by the Government's new measures", which she said "in effect prevent any search of the register for journalistic purposes". Her article situated the dispute within the broader question of whether Hong Kong law protects a right to newsgathering.

Judicial review proceedings

The HKJA applied for judicial review in April 2024. It challenged the policy and revised application form, delays in the determination of applications by journalists, and the rejection of several individual applications.

The association advanced five grounds of review. It contended that the policy was ultra vires the Road Traffic Ordinance and its subsidiary legislation; constituted a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression and freedom of the press; was irrational under the Wednesbury standard; unlawfully fettered the Commissioner's discretion; and that delays and refusals in individual applications were unlawful, irrational or unconstitutional.

The individual applications considered in the proceedings included applications by journalists from HK01, Ming Pao, Now TV and The Collective (集誌社), a Hong Kong news outlet. Several concerned vehicles associated with the 2019 Yuen Long attack, while others concerned a traffic accident, a personalised registration mark, alleged illegal dumping and other matters.

At the substantive hearing on 24 September 2024, Nigel Kat SC, appearing for the HKJA, argued that the revised policy was inconsistent with the Court of Final Appeal's decision and imposed unjustified obstacles on constitutionally protected journalistic newsgathering. Benjamin Yu SC, appearing for the Commissioner, argued that the Commissioner had a duty to act as a "gatekeeper" for private information in the vehicle register and that journalists had no automatic entitlement to such data.

Following the September 2024 hearing, the parties sought and obtained leave in February 2026 to adduce additional evidence concerning an application under exceptional circumstances and to make further submissions. Judgment was delivered on 6 March 2026.

Judgment

Statutory purpose and ultra vires challenge

The HKJA argued that excluding journalism from the specified purposes under the Automatic Route frustrated the broad statutory purposes recognised in Choy Yuk Ling and was therefore ultra vires.

Coleman accepted part of that argument. He rejected the Commissioner's submission that the relevant statutory purposes were essentially confined to matters necessary or incidental to the acquisition, ownership and use of a vehicle. He held that journalistic activity could itself be incidental to vehicle ownership or use, giving a journalistic investigation of a traffic accident as an example.

Coleman also considered the Guidance Notes internally inconsistent. They described the purposes of the Register as including the provision of information to persons directly affected by vehicle ownership or use who consequently needed to ascertain the relevant particulars, while simultaneously providing a Public Interest Route designed for applicants who frequently would not satisfy that description.

He described this as a mismatch arising from the Commissioner's misconception of at least part of the statutory purposes of the Register. The error did not, however, render the policy as a whole unlawful. Coleman held that Choy Yuk Ling permitted the Commissioner to devise an application process and limit the purposes for which vehicle particulars would be supplied, while the Public Interest Route preserved an avenue through which bona fide journalistic applications could succeed.

Coleman emphasised that the Public Interest Route was one of the routes created by the policy itself rather than an external exception. Although journalistic activity could fall within the statutory purposes of the Register, that did not mean journalistic applications had to be approved automatically.

The HKJA also relied on section 61 of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, which contains exemptions relating to news activity. Coleman held that the provision did not create a blanket exemption for journalists or impose a positive duty on the Commissioner to disclose personal information for journalistic purposes. Rather, the public-interest requirements in section 61 were consistent with the Commissioner's need to undertake a balancing exercise before disclosure.

Coleman therefore held that the policy was not ultra vires the Road Traffic Ordinance or the relevant regulations.

Proportionality and competing rights

The court accepted that the policy engaged freedom of expression and freedom of the press under Article 27 of the Basic Law and Article 16 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights. It also accepted that disclosure of vehicle owners' personal information engaged the right to privacy.