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Exercising Your Data Access Rights under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Frequently Asked Questions and Answers) / June 2016
Exercising Your Data Access Rights under the
Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance
(Frequently AskedQuestions and Answers)
Leaflet
Under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (the “
Ordinance
”), an individual has the right to request a
data user, e.g. a government department or a company, to confirm whether it holds his personal data,
and to supply a copy of the data. Such a request is called a data access request.
Common examples of data access requests include requests by employees for copies of their
performance appraisal reports, requests by patients for copies of their medical records and requests by
consumers for copies of their service application forms.
The following are some frequently asked questions and answers to assist individuals in making data
access requests:
Q1.
How should I make a data access request? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Q2.
Apart from completing the DAR Form, what other information or documents should I provide? . . . . . . . 2
Q3.
When completing the DAR Form, what should I pay attention to? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Q4.
Can I make a request for “all personal data”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Q5.
Can I make a request for a copy of a specified document which contains my personal data? . . . . . . . . . 2
Q6.
Can the data user charge me a fee for complying with my data access request? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Q7.
Must my data access request be complied with by the data user? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Q8. How long will it take for my data access request to be processed by the data user? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Q9. I do not know whether the data user holds the data requested by me. Does the data user have to
reply to me after receiving my data access request? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Q10. Must I make a data access request myself or can I authorise another individual to make a data access
request on my behalf? Can a person make a data access request on behalf of another person who is
under the age of 18 or incapable of managing his own affairs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Q11. Can I request the data user, when complying with my data access request, to provide me with a copy
of the requested data in the language of my choice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Q12. Can I request the data user, when complying with my data access request, to provide me with a copy
of the requested data in a specified form (e.g. computer disk, microfilm etc.) ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Q13. What can I do if I find that my personal data provided by the data user in response to my data access
request is inaccurate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Q14. Is there a prescribed form for making a data correction request? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4