Privacy Commissioner Launches Privacy Awareness Week 2009

1.    The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (“PCPD”) will join other members of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (“APPA”) to promote the third Privacy Awareness Week (“PAW”) from 3-9 May 2009.

2.    The purpose of PAW is to promote the importance of protecting personal data privacy.  The theme of PAW 2009 is “Privacy is Your Business” and the focus is on encouraging young people to take care in deciding to upload their personal data especially when engaging in online activities.

3.    Members of the APPA include the Privacy Commissioners of Australia (including the Commissioners of the States of New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory), New Zealand, Canada (including the Province of British Columbia), the Korean Information Security Authority, and Hong Kong.

4.    To mark the event, APPA members have jointly produced a short animation video to remind people, especially young people, of the importance of personal data privacy when they upload personal data online.  To view the video, please visit the websites at www.pcpd.org.hk or www.privacyawarenessweek.com.

5.    The Privacy Commissioner Mr. Roderick Woo said: “I am pleased that PAW is gaining more support as it enters its third year.  In Hong Kong, members of the Data Protection Officers’ Club representing over 50 corporate data users are taking part in the organized activities during the week.  By encouraging employees to take part in PAW activities, organizations can instill a privacy safe culture in the workplace.”

6.    PCPD is also working with other concerned groups in a variety of promotional and educational events held during the week, including the “Privacy Reports” and “Public Hospital Privacy Campaign”.

7.    “Privacy Reports” is a project involving the making of a series of short videos produced by students of four secondary schools featuring social issues that impact on personal data privacy in Hong Kong.  The participating schools are Wah Yan College Hong Kong, Po Kok Secondary School, C.C.C. Kwei Wah Shan College and Salesian English School.  In the course of the project, the students were provided with the opportunity to attend seminars on personal data privacy issues and interview selected legislators, government officials and experts.  The students were then expected to analyze, evaluate, construct and express their points of view towards the issues through the shooting of the videos.  The videos will be widely broadcast in the public domain to remind young people of the importance of protecting personal data privacy.

8.    “Public Hospital Privacy Campaign” is the largest-ever industry-wide educational campaign the PCPD has organized.  Nowadays computer systems are widely used within the health care system for dealing with patients’ data.  The ease of collecting and transmitting patients’ data is essential to the provision of medical treatment.  However, it also poses potential security risks to patients’ data privacy and creates challenges for medical practitioners.  To provide guidance to medical practitioners in the handling of patients’ data, the PCPD will be launching a comprehensive educational campaign together with the Hospital Authority for all of its staff.  Training seminars will be held at every HA hospital and clinic through the year 2009 and beyond.  PCPD is currently preparing a self-training module tailored to the particular needs and work nature of medical staff.

9.    For more information on PAW 2009 events, please visit the PCPD website at http://www.pcpd.org.hk, or the PAW 2009 website at http://www.privacyawarenessweek.org.



END