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Surveys/ Study Reports

1999 Opinion Survey

Introduction

The Social Sciences Research Centre (SSRC) of the University of Hong Kong was commissioned by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) in 1997 to carry out the Baseline Survey: Public Attitudes to and Preparedness for the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, and in 1998 and 1999 to undertake follow-up surveys.

The objectives of the 1999 survey were to

  1. assess individuals' attitudes to personal data privacy issues and experiences of misuse of their personal data (with special reference to Internet privacy), their awareness of the protection provided by the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance ("the Ordinance") and readiness to make use of the rights provided by the Ordinance;
  2. assess organizations' attitudes towards and measures taken to implement the requirements of the Ordinance, their policies and practices of personal data privacy (including on-line personal data privacy), and their sources of help (including the PCPD) in complying with the Ordinance;
  3. where appropriate, comparisons were made between the findings in the 1999 survey with those of the 1997 and 1998 surveys to study the changes within the relevant period.

The survey consisted of two parts: a survey of individuals and a survey of organizations. The survey of individuals was a telephone survey of 1,580 Cantonese speaking HK residents who lived in a household with a telephone while the survey of organizations was a bilingual mail survey of 463 organizations from the public and private sectors holding a relatively large amount of non-employee personal data. Both surveys were mainly conducted in March 1999.

Key results of the survey of individuals

The key results of the survey of individuals are as follows:

  • The privacy consciousness and attitudes of individuals were in general similar to those in the 1998 survey. They had become more concerned about the use of their ID card number and there was an increase in their trust in organizations with personal data.
  • Fewer people alleged that their personal data had been misused by organizations while more respondents said that they had experience of compliance with the Ordinance by being informed of the purposes of the collection of personal data and provided with "opt-out" clauses in direct marketing materials.
  • About a quarter of the respondents would use the Internet for personal purposes. These respondents were least wiliing to provide credit card numbers and ID card numbers on-line but more than half never or seldom checked the privacy policy of websites before they provided their personal data on-line.
  • On the other hand, 39% of the respondents did not welcome unsolicited commercial e-mails mainly because it wasted time and they were not hoppy that their e-mail address was used without their consent;
  • However, the public's concern over the privacy/security issues of the Internet did not have a great deterrent effect on their use of Internet services.

Key results of the survey of organizations

The key results of the survey of organizations are as follow

  • The management of most respondents had officially adopted some kind of policies and practices to comply with the Ordinance.
  • Similar to the findings in the previous survey, the importance of representative bodies was decreasing while that of the PCPD had increased in helping organizations to comply with the Ordinance.
  • There was a significant increase in the percentage of organizations that considered the Ordinance had long term benefits for their organizations.
  • e-mail policy on the reading of e-mails by management or on the use of the e-mail facilities by employees for personal purposes.
  • About half of the respondents had set up websites for general access and one fihh collected personal data on-line. Of those websites which collected personal data on the Internet, 57% provided individuals with Personal Information Collection (PIC) Statement and 26% provided a Privacy Policy Statement.
  • One fifth of respondents who collected personal data on the Internet would send direct marketing e-mails to individuals ond 9096 of them would provide on "opt-out" clause.