Question from Enquirer
The enquirer considered the services provided by the property management company to her residence substandard. For the purposes of lodging a complaint about this with the company as well as notifying other residents of her views, the enquirer proposed to take pictures and video clips of the staff member who was the subject of her complaint, and thereafter, possibly upload the pictures and video clips to an online public platform.
Our Reply
The concerns relevant to this case are:
(a) whether the images are "personal data" governed by the Ordinance (s.2(1) of the Ordinance);
(b) if so, whether the collection of the images are necessary and fair (DPP1(1) and DPP1(2) of the Ordinance); and
(c) whether the upload of the images is directly related to the purpose of collection (DPP3 of the Ordinance).
Uploading the images online would not appear to be directly related to the original purpose of collection, i.e. lodging a complaint with the property management company and notifying other residents. Residents are encouraged to contact the appropriate entities, i.e. the Incorporated Owners and/or the property management company, to resolve the matter pragmatically.
uploaded on web in July 2014