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Media Statement - International Conference Highlights the Role of Privacy Management Programme in Good Corporate Governance

Date: 12 February 2014

International Conference Highlights the Role of Privacy Management Programme in Good Corporate Governance

(12 February 2014) Over 250 government administrators as well as legal and compliance professionals from the private sector attended yesterday the International Conference on Data Privacy in Corporate Governance ("the Conference"). The Conference was organised by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data ("PCPD") to promote the adoption of Privacy Management Programmes ("PMP") in organisations as a strategic framework to protect personal data privacy.

Speaking at the opening session of the conference, the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Mr Allan Chiang remarked, "Regulatory experience has shown time and again that privacy and data protection cannot be managed effectively if they are merely treated as a compliance issue, doing the least possible to comply with the legal requirements, but with little or no regard to customers’ privacy expectations. Instead, we should consider the subject from a broad business perspective, bringing back the concept of customer centricity into the business equation."

"Organisations, as responsible corporate citizens, should adopt a paradigm shift from compliance to accountability. To this end, top management’s commitment is required to build and maintain PMP which ensures that privacy is built by design into all initiatives, programmes or services, and data protection is practised throughout the organisation. This proactive approach should lead to a win-win-win outcome for the organisations and their staff as well as customers."

Local and international privacy practitioners and consultants spoke at the Conference. Representatives from the Centre for Information Policy Leadership ("CIPL"), the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Information Integrity Solutions and Nymity provided the best-in-class tools and templates for implementing PMP based on an accountability-based approach. Insights and experiences of implementing successful PMPs were also shared by the CEO of the Octopus group of companies and the in-house privacy professionals from CLP Power Hong Kong, HKT Group, Hewlett-Packard, MasterCard and Nokia.

The Conference was preceded by a privacy dialogue which took place on 10 February 2014 between on the one hand, PCPD, local privacy advocates and academia, and on the other hand, an overseas delegation led by CIPL which comprised privacy experts from Accenture, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, MasterCard, Nokia, UPSand Yahoo!. Views were exchanged on Big Data and analytics, de-identification of personal data, privacy risk management and Internet of Things.

Over250 people attended the International Conference on Data Privacy in Corporate Governance organised by the PCPD.
Over250 people attended the International Conference on Data Privacy in Corporate Governance organised by the PCPD.
The Privacy Commissioner connected local privacy advocates and academia with the CIPL delegation for a private dialogue. Views were exchanged on Big Data and analytics, de-identification of personal data, privacy risk management and Internet of Things.
The Privacy Commissioner connected local privacy advocates and academia with the CIPL delegation for a private dialogue. Views were exchanged on Big Data and analytics, de-identification of personal data, privacy risk management and Internet of Things.

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The Office of Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong is an independent statutory body set up to oversee the enforcement of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance in Hong Kong. Its mission is to secure the protection of privacy of the individual with respect to personal data through promotion, monitoring and supervision of compliance with the Ordinance.