The elephant in the room...
Letters | Does recording of Cathay Pacific cabin crew breach privacy law?
Readers discuss an audio recording that resulted in the firing of three airline staff
It is a pity that three Cathay Pacific cabin crew members were
sacked this week after their private conversation, in which they poured scorn on travellers from the mainland who struggled to speak English, went public.
Cathay swiftly took action after an audio recording of their casual chat was shared on the hugely popular Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. The incident was also picked up by
People’s Daily, which published an online commentary criticising Cathay’s corporate culture for “worshipping foreigners” and respecting Hongkongers but looking down on mainlanders.
One neglected aspect of the whole affair was the secret taping of the private chat between the flight attendants by a passenger seated near their work area. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data should come forward and explain to the public whether such an act of recording a private conversation breaches the local privacy law.
Understandably, the passenger who heard the exchange – a mainlander who has lived in Hong Kong for over a decade – was upset with the flight attendants poking fun at a mainland traveller who couldn’t speak English, but does that justify secretly recording the conversation and exposing it to the media?
They sounded unkind but the chat was a lighthearted exchange among colleagues in their own rest area. There is no reason it should be blown up into an issue about discrimination resulting in sackings.
The mainland market is, of course, crucial to any company, Cathay Pacific included. But a balance needs to be struck between non-discriminatory service and decency by passengers with due regard for personal privacy.
Y. Yeung, Mid-Levels