Data hk can be an invaluable asset to companies across numerous sectors, providing invaluable information that enables more informed business decisions. It can track trends, enhance customer satisfaction and identify problem areas; additionally it can offer insights into consumer sentiment analysis for financial services, insurance and marketing sectors.
However, privacy should always be of prime consideration in any practice involving personal data. Article 14 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights stipulates that no one shall be subject to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family life and correspondence as well as unlawful attacks against their honor and reputation – hence why any use of personal information must be thoroughly and objectively justified before proceeding further.
Transferring personal data outside Hong Kong requires special consideration and an impact assessment should be carried out prior to any transfer to ensure it does not pose any significant privacy risk and meets exporter responsibilities under PDPO. Such an evaluation must include an examination of legal environments, laws and practices as well as any issues which might arise during transfer.
Additionally, the PDPO mandates that any person in possession of personal data must meet certain statutory obligations, such as meeting six Data Protection Principles that form core obligations under Hong Kong privacy law. A data user must inform any data subject on or prior to collecting his/her personal information about its purpose for collection as well as potential recipients he/she will share it with.
An essential factor when assessing whether data transfer is permissible is how identifiable the personal data will be. For example, photographs taken of crowds at concerts don’t usually constitute personal data unless taken with the intent to identify individuals; similarly with CCTV recordings and logs of persons entering car parks as well as meeting records where their aim is not to identify participants directly.
However, in other jurisdictions such as mainland China and GDPR, personal data refers to information identifying or identifiable natural persons. Hong Kong applies a more stringent definition that could limit which data requests can be made under access requests compared to other jurisdictions. The Access My Info: Hong Kong (‘AMI:HK’) project seeks to test this assumption by creating an easy-to-use website that facilitates residents making access requests with their telecommunications providers. This site was built by members from Chinese University of Hong Kong School of Journalism & Communication, InMediaHK, Keyboard Frontline, Open Effect and Citizen Lab; these organizations being the original developers of AMI project in Canada.
