Wrongful transmission of subscribers' personal data by fax - DPP4

The complainant received by fax a large quantity of documents consisting of service applications, copies of Hong Kong Identity Cards and copies of credit cards that were personal data of customers of a mobile service operator. These documents originated from a retail outlet of the operator. The normal process was that the staff at the outlet would transmit the documents using a pre-programmed fax number. On this occasion, a staff at the outlet manually dialed the fax number. Due to a manual error, the documents were sent to the wrong fax number. No procedures had been implemented at the outlet that required staff to check and ensure that the transmission of documents was correctly carried out. The operator was found to be in breach of DPP4 and was directed to implement remedial measures to prevent any recurrence. The appropriate procedure would be to check the fax journal printout to ensure outgoing faxed documents had been transmitted to the right destination.