Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog highlights three cases and says helpers’ actions led to their employers being harassed by debt collectors
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenLeopold ChenPublished: 4:00pm, 25 Aug 2026Three domestic helpers in Hong Kong have been sacked and issued warning letters after providing their employers’ personal data without consent to secure loans, resulting in the households being harassed by debt collectors.
Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling said on Tuesday that, in each of the three cases, the names, phone numbers and addresses of employers were originally obtained solely for work purposes.
“However, the domestic helpers in question subsequently provided the employers’ personal data to financial institutions for applying for loans,” she said. “And I would say that this went beyond the original purpose for which the data was collected.”
In one of the cases, which happened in 2025, the helper provided her employers’ phone number and address to a moneylender in the Philippines as proof of work, but later defaulted on payments due to the high interest rate.
The moneylender then texted the employer, requesting that the helper be reminded to make the payments, and threatened to send debt collectors to the address if the transaction was not completed by a deadline.
The other two cases took place in January and May this year and involved the helpers disclosing their employers’ personal information to several financial institutions without consent to apply for loans, resulting in their employers being harassed.
