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| All HK residents should have a smart ID card by now, unless they were abroad during the call-up |
In what could be the first case of its kind, a Filipina resident has been charged with failing to renew her HKID card on time, an offence that is punishable with a $5,000 fine.
The charge is one of four filed against 39-year-old Josefina Araneta
Ygot, who appeared in Eastern Court earlier Friday and asked for the hearing of
the cases against her adjourned until Jan. 26 next year.
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The three other charges pertain to her alleged selling and possessing
more than 1,000 items of fake branded items from her first-floor shop at World-Wide
Plaza in Central, and of hiring an overstayer to help sell the goods.
The fourth charge against Ygot reads: “Between July 24, 2022 and Sept.
20, 2023, you being a holder of a HK identity card issued before Nov. 26, 2018,
did without reasonable excuse, failed to apply for a new ID card in accordance
with Sec. 7 of Registration of Persons Ordinance Cap.177, at such places in
such sequence and within such period as the Secretary for Security directed by
an order published in the Official Gazette on 4 Apr. 2022 under section 7B (1)
of the Registration of Persons Ordinance, Cap. 177.”
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| I-CLICK DITO! |
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Under subsection 3 of the Ordinance, anyone who “without reasonable
excuse” fails to comply with the said order is deemed to have committed an
offence and is liable to a fine at level 2, or $5,000.
Exempted from this are those who were not in Hong Kong at the time when
they were required to apply or renew their HKID card, provided they apply for
the card within 30 days of their return to Hong Kong.
While immigration
officials have repeatedly warned residents to renew their HKID cards within the
specified period, they have been relatively lax in enforcing the rule.
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Not a few residents
have posted on social media that all they were asked when they applied for the HKID
renewal was to give an explanation for their lapse. Nobody has reported being called
out for their failure to comply with the regulation, much less charged in
court, until this.
Under the four-year
replacement exercise which formally began in January 2019, residents were
called to apply for the new smart ID according to their age group. Those born
between 1985 and 1986 were the first to be called for renewal, although some residents
like government officials and the police were able to get their new ID cards
from Dec. 27, 2018.
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Also from November 26
of that year, all new applicants or those who needed to replace their IDs
either because they were lost, destroyed, damaged or defaced, were given the
new smart ID card.
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| PADALA NA! |
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