Classified Hong Kong "watch list" leaked on Internet

A government investigation was underway Friday after it was revealed that confidential files from the Immigration Department had been mistakenly leaked on to the Internet.

The list, which contained a list of the names of people for officers to watch, plus travel document information and travel records, has been available on the Internet since Monday through a file-sharing programme called "Foxy."

The blunder occurred after a newly-recruited immigration officer working at the Lok Ma Chau border point took home some old classified files to study without authorisation.

His computer contained the "Foxy" programme and when he connected to the Internet, the files were distributed without his knowledge.

The security blunder is the latest in a series in Hong Kong in the last week.

Earlier this week, banking giant HSBC was forced to apologise to customers after it admitted it had lost the data of 159,000 accounts from a Hong Kong branch.

The data was held ...