PCPD News Issue 32

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PCPD News 私隱專員公署通訊 • Issue no. 32
various situations. For the use of personal
data made public by public registries,
13-15% of respondents had no concern
and 18% had serious concern about the
marriage and lands registry. For the ID
card number and residential address of
a company director, 28-35% had serious
concern, supporting that this information
is seen as sensitive. 67% of respondents
had serious concern and only 1-2% of
respondents had no concern as regards
provision of their or their friends/relatives
names and addresses when applying for a
loyalty card, suggesting that this is widely
seen as invasion of privacy.
Ne a r l y h a l f o f r e s p o n d e n t s h a d
experienced misuse of their personal
data in the last 12 months and the
most common source of the problem
was banks (57%), followed by telecom
companies (32%), fitness/beauty centres
(26%) and money lenders (17%). Almost
11% of those who experienced misuse
had made a complaint, while those who
had not complained explained that the
major reasons were that friends had
provided the information (35%), or they
were unwilling to involve the company
staff (25%) responsible for the misuse.
The Survey revealed that the public could
often sacrifice privacy for the sake of
convenience. Few respondents were very
concerned about providing mobile phone
number (even though it allows receiving
advertising calls), occupation or full date
of birth (even though it is often used for
validation).
For the notification of data leakage, there
is support that the data subjects and the
PCPD as well as the media should be
notified immediately. This suggests a
growing expectation for organisations
to measure up and demonstrate to the
public their commitment to ensuring
privacy and data protection.
Effectiveness of the PCPD
T h e S u r v e y r e v e a l e d t h a t a n
overwhelming majority of respondents
(86%) agreed or strongly agreed that
the PCPD has increased community
awareness of personal data privacy issues
after the Octopus Incident in 2010.
It was generally agreed that naming
the organisation at fault in the PCPD’s
investigation reports was effective
because it raised public awareness. Most
interviewees reported that their trust
had decreased towards those companies
against which the PCPD had reported
contraventions of the Personal Data
(Privacy) Ordinance.
The Survey assessed the perceived
trustworthiness of six statutory agencies
in handling complaints and identified the
PCPD as the second most trusted agency,
after the Independent Commission
Against Corruption.
Expectations for Greater
Enforcement Power
In general, very few interviewees thought
the current regulatory framework was
sufficient to protect the public. They
were concerned about people being
forced to provide personal data and a
lot of personal data could be found in
the public domain. Most respondents
support the PCPD should have greater
enforcement powers to regulate mobile
apps, direct marketing activities, data
breach incidents, etc.
Continuous Challenges from Further
Advances in Digitisation
When asked whether they were willing
to pay HK$20 per month for email
services without advertising, only 6%
of respondents gave a positive answer,
implying that most people are reluctant
to pay for privacy protection.
Compared to the findings of a privacy
awareness survey on Facebook users
conducted by the PCPD two years ago,
people are now generally more aware
of the need for privacy protection on
social networks and can act to protect
themselves. A strong majority (77%) of
Facebook account users interviewed
were aware of the privacy setting, of
whom nearly all (90%) have changed the
settings.
An overwhelming majority (87%) of
respondents used a smartphone of whom
95% had an instant messaging app
installed. 72% of these respondents were
aware that the app accesses all contact
information on their smartphones and a
significant proportion (33%) thought the
law should prohibit this.
Read the full survey report (with executive
summary):
resources_centre/publications/surveys/
files/baselinesurvey2014.pdf
公署動態
PCPD in Action
私隱及資料保障法律獎學金
Scholarship for Study on Privacy and Data Protection Law
公署由 2012 年起與香港大學法律學院合
辦為期三年的獎學金，鼓勵法律系學生
關注個人資料私隱這個課題。今年，香
港大學法學專業證書學生戴俊賢憑「以
濫用個人資料及洩漏機密為獨特的訴訟
因由」為題的論文，脫穎而出獲獎。
The PCPD and the Faculty of Law, The
University of Hong Kong (“HKU”) jointly
set up a Privacy Commissioner Prize
in Privacy and Data Protection Law
scholarship for three years since 2012
to encourage law students to study data
privacy issues. Terrence Chun-yin TAI,
a HKU Postgraduate Certificate in Laws
student, won the Prize with his research
paper “Misuse of Private Information and
Breach of Confidence as Distinct Causes
of Action”.