Police open to publicizing statistics on communications interception

The Judiciary Police (PJ) says that it holds an open attitude regarding whether to publicize statistics on interception practices.

“The Macau government, including security authorities, is open to disclosing, or not, relevant information in the future; to establishing, or not, a department responsible for statistics; and, to publicize, or not, relevant information on communication interception,” the police said in its recent statement.

The PJ also pointed out that it should be noted that despite society generally supporting the disclosure of relevant information or the establishment of relevant departments, according to Macau’s current legal system, publicizing information cannot violate the principle of judicial secrecy or harm the legal authority of the judicial authorities.

In addition, PJ said that such department would be independent from the criminal police department and should be set up within the judicial department.

“Of course, its establishment and operation must not violate the principle of judicial independence and must comply with the relevant provisions of both the judicial practice and system. In any case, the establishment of a new system or norm must not be blind and cannot share or damage the current judicial system in Macau,” PJ writes.

According to the police, those people are asking for data similar to that published by the commissioners for Interception and Communications and Surveillance in Hong Kong.

In particular, Hong Kong’s statistics include the main categories of offences for interception of communications, number of arrests, summaries of reviews and overall evaluation of interceptions.