Macau Matters | The right to privacy and charitable good governance

Richard Whitfield

I have helped local charities publish several annual reports. While published annual reports are very common for charities internationally, very few are done in Macau, which is very interesting, given that most of Macau’s social services rely totally on charitable organisations. (Of the hundreds of charities in Macau, I only know of a few that publish substantial annual reports.)

I believe that it is crucial for charities to publish annual reports to demonstrate transparency and good governance. While charities benefit communities, they cannot exist without the donations and other support that the local community provides. Annual reports are an important tool for charities to prove that they are properly and efficiently utilising the support that they receive. They are also a key promotional tool – people will only donate to charitable organisations that they can understand and sympathise with.

I decided to get involved with this work mainly to set a precedent and hoped that many other Macau charities follow our example and produce good annual reports (but this has not happened).

Developing the first annual report for a charity involves a considerable data collection effort, but it becomes much easier in succeeding years. In a few cases now, the Macau government has obstructed the publication of charity annual reports, supposedly to “preserve the privacy” of the recipients of charitable efforts. In particular, we were asked to remove a photo of an academic achievement medal because it named the child and to remove a photo that showed a volunteer hugging a child because she could be identified.

The “elephant in the room” here was the right to privacy. The Macau government treats it as an undeniable trump card that I do not accept – the individual’s right to privacy must be always be balanced by the community’s right to ensure that public institutions operate effectively and efficiently and deserve the community’s support.

In the children’s charity case, medals of academic achievement are very important evidence that the charity is properly managing the education of the children in its care and should be shown. Schools generally publish this kind of information and so why should it not appear in a charity’s annual report? Similarly, from a community perspective it is very important to know that volunteers work with charities – they show that reasonable leverage is being obtained for the funds received and that third parties are involved and know what is happening within the organisation.

I have checked charity annual reports from several countries and they all show information about their “customers” and identify individuals – it is normal international practice in the USA, Europe, Australia and Hong Kong and other forward looking Asian countries. Needing assistance is not something shameful, and people help people – not faceless, opaque organisations. Personalising social institutions is crucial for demonstrating transparency and good governance and for attracting donations and it is why charities all round the world ask their “customers” for permission to use their names and images (which is also what the charity here does). If your right to privacy is so sacrosanct you do not have to accept the charitable assistance being offered, but the vast majority of people receiving assistance understand the need to balance their right to privacy with the community’s need to know how effectively and efficiently its charitable giving is being utilised.

It is very unfortunate that the authorities governing charities in Macau are not up with modern practices. They seem to fear transparency and good governance and want to hide behind a cloak of “privacy” concerns. This is unreasonable and unacceptable, and we need to demand that Macau charities prove their transparency and good governance, and our public officials should be leading the way in this regard, not obstructing progress.