Date:17 June 2020
Data Breach Incident of the University of Hong Kong
Upon receipt of media enquiries about a data breach incident of the University of Hong Kong involving students’ personal data, the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong (PCPD), Mr Stephen Kai-yi WONG, made the following response from the perspective of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance:
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The PCPD received a data breach notification from the university concerned. As at 6:00pm today, the PCPD received one related complaint.
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Being concerned about the incident, which involved students’ personal data (including date of birth, address, telephone number, email address, etc.), the PCPD would conduct a compliance check in accordance with established procedures to find out the relevant facts. No further comments would be made at this stage.
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The PCPD encourages organisations to make notifications when data breach incidents occur. It is a good practice of the university concerned to have taken the initiative to notify the PCPD. Filing of data breach notifications is conducive to collaboration between the PCPD and the organisations concerned to minimise the potential harm that the incidents may cause to those affected and to identify improvement measures for effectively avoiding the recurrence of similar incidents.
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