Media Statements

Date: 9 September 2016

PCPD 20th Anniversary Cocktail Reception “Protect and Respect Personal Data in a Data Driven Economy”

(9 September 2016) The office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong (“PCPD”) marked its 20th anniversary with a cocktail reception officiated by the Under Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Ronald Ngok-pang CHAN today.

Speaking at the cocktail reception, Mr Stephen Kai-yi WONG, Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong (“Privacy Commissioner”), said, ”20 years ago, people in Hong Kong generally did not have much knowledge about privacy, let alone their rights. Today, they are concerned that their personal data stored in one device is being shared, misused or disclosed even though they simply agree or accept, without reading it, an overly long and legalistic data collection or privacy statement provided by a data user or processor. 20 years ago, enterprises and organisations, commercial ones in particular, took protecting or respecting the data they collected as a liability, no more than a compliance job undertaken by a member of their general staff. Today, they begin to accept that data protection and respect is an asset and would lead to securing trust and reputation, hence should be undertaken as part of corporate governance and commitment by the top management”.

Mr Wong continued, “New information and communication technologies are generating potent and novel contribution to the community at large, trade and commerce included, so are the risks to personal data protection. One of the challenges that we as a regulator have to meet nowadays is where sensory ability, cognition and robotics etc. are enabled by Cloud and settled by Blockchain, how we could help unlock and share the data within the existing protection framework, with a view to maximizing the benefits of data in a sustainable way, minimising risks and harms, creating healthy synergy with economic growth, identifying and securing the innovative use of data in this data driven economy.”

The Privacy Commissioner today also issued his office’s 2015-16 Annual Report. With the theme “Smart City, Data Protection”, this year’s report outlined the evolution and advancement of the PCPD in the past 20 years. It also reported the major work accomplished by the PCPD in the past year. (Please refer to the appendix for the highlights of the PCPD’s achievements in 2015-16)

Looking ahead, Mr Wong expected more challenges and opportunities for protecting and respecting personal data in the data driven economy. He further expressed his heartfelt thanks to the guests for their broad and enlightened support for the PCPD in the past 20 years.

The Privacy Commissioner also took this opportunity to announce that the 39th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (“ICDPPC”) will be hosted in Hong Kong next year, from 25 – 29 September 2017. Last hosted in Hong Kong in 1999, the ICDPPC has been the premium global forum for 110 data protection authorities and representatives of the data related trade and industries in the world, attracting around 800 participants each year for over three decades.

The cocktail reception was attended by over 120 guests. It was ended with a special video which highlighted PCPD’s milestones over 20 years of personal data privacy protection in Hong Kong.

(Download) Welcome Address by the Privacy Commissioner Mr Stephen WONG

Photo :

1. Overall 120 distinguished guests attended the PCPD 20th Anniversary Cocktail Reception today (9 September 2016).


2. The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong, Mr Stephen Kai-yi WONG, thanked different parties in his welcome speech.


3. The Under Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Ronald Ngok-pang CHAN officiated at the cocktail reception.


4. Group photo: The Under Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Ronald Ngok-pang CHAN (first row, fourth right), The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong, Mr Stephen Kai-yi WONG (first row, fourth left), and distinguished speakers of the Symposium on “Data Protection Law Development in the Information Age”.



Appendix:

The highlights of the PCPD's achievements in 2015-16 are outlined as follows:

Enquiries
A total of 18,690 enquiries were handled during the year, up 14% from that of the previous year.

They were mainly concerned with data access and correction requests (10%), human resource management (9%), and use of personal data in direct marketing (9%).

Complaints
A record high 2,022 complaint cases were received in 2015-16, a 20% increase from that of the previous year.

Of the complaints received, 72% were against private-sector organisations; 11% were against public-sector organisations and 17% were against individuals.

For the private-sector organisations, 25% were against the banking and financial sector; 14% were against the property management sector and 7% were against the telecommunications sector.

Regarding the nature of the complaint allegations (2,585 alleged breaches in total), 33% related to the collection of personal data, 32% related to the use of personal data without the consent of data subjects, 12% related to direct marketing, 9% to inadequate data security and 6% to data access/correction requests.

Data Breach Notification and Compliance Checks
During the report period, 104 data breach incidents affecting 854,476 Hong Kong individuals were reported to the PCPD, as compared with 66 incidents involving 77,409 individuals in 2014-15. These incidents involved the loss of documents, hacking, inadvertent disclosure of personal data by fax, email or post, and system failure.

The PCPD completed 286 compliance checks in 2015-16, as compared with 227 checks in 2014-15.

Enforcement Action
The PCPD takes enforcement action in cases of contravention of the requirements under the Ordinance.

In 2015-16, the PCPD issued one warning and nine enforcement notices to the parties complained against as compared with seven enforcement notices in 2014-15.

Prosecution
During the report period, the total number of prosecutions was six (one in 2014-15). All of which related to the use of personal data in direct marketing. Four of such cases were concluded in convictions while the remaining two cases were still in progress in the report year.

Use of Information and Communications Technology ("ICT")
A total of 239 ICT-related complaints in 2015-16, representing a 7% year-on-year increase. The rising trend is principally attributable to the increasing popularity of smartphones and the Internet.

Top four ICT-related complaints involved:

• Specifically related to social networks
• Disclosure or leakage of personal data on the Internet
• Related to smartphone applications
• Cyber-bullying