VII. The Secretary's Executive Order Of 2005

Section 11(2) of the ETO provides that: “The Secretary may, in relation to an Ordinance to which this Ordinance applies, specify by notice published in the Gazette (a) the manner and format in which information in the form of an electronic record is to be given, presented or retained for the purposes of that Ordinance . . . .” Accordingly, in January of 2005, Secretary Francis Ho issued an executive order specifying the required format for the submission of documents in electronic form to the Hong Kong government.412 This executive order went into effect on 1 March 2005.413 The order is applicable to electronic documents filed with the government, but does not apply to electronic documents transmitted to private, non-governmental parties. Private parties determine their own format requirements.414