diff --git a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityConstants.java b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityConstants.java
index bc84207b5cd..f98efec8ebd 100644
--- a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityConstants.java
+++ b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityConstants.java
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ public final class VisibilityConstants {
    **/
   public static final byte VISIBILITY_SERIALIZATION_VERSION = 1;
   /** Byte representation of the visibility_serialization_version **/
-  public static final byte[] SORTED_ORDINAL_SERIALIZATION_FORMAT = Bytes
-      .toBytes(VISIBILITY_SERIALIZATION_VERSION);
+  public static final byte[] SORTED_ORDINAL_SERIALIZATION_FORMAT =
+      new byte[] { VISIBILITY_SERIALIZATION_VERSION };
 
 }
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityUtils.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityUtils.java
index 33ccab692af..35843ff90cf 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityUtils.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/security/visibility/VisibilityUtils.java
@@ -181,7 +181,7 @@ public class VisibilityUtils {
     while (tagsIterator.hasNext()) {
       Tag tag = tagsIterator.next();
       if (tag.getType() == VisibilityUtils.VISIBILITY_EXP_SERIALIZATION_TAG_TYPE) {
-        int serializationVersion = Bytes.toShort(tag.getBuffer());
+        int serializationVersion = tag.getBuffer()[tag.getTagOffset()];
         if (serializationVersion == VisibilityConstants.VISIBILITY_SERIALIZATION_VERSION) {
           sortedOrder = true;
           continue;