Promoting Awareness

2003 Data Subjects Opinion Survey

In March the PCPD was presented with the findings of the 2003 Data Subjects Survey undertaken on its behalf by the Social Sciences Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong. The survey sample of 1,051 respondents were asked about a wide range of privacy-related issues such as workplace surveillance, privacy as a social policy, experiences of mis-use of personal data, privacy and the Internet and cross border data transfer.

The following are some of the more important findings.

	62% of respondents were in full or part time employment and of these 31% were subjected to at least one form of workplace monitoring.
	82% of respondents claimed that they had not been notified by their employer about workplace surveillance practices.
	Where employees had been informed about workplace monitoring by their employer only 27% were informed in writing.
	Privacy continued to be rated highly as a social policy receiving a mean score of 7.7 out of 10 in terms of its importance. This rating is consistent with scores attained in preceding surveys.
	Although a conditional question, no less than 82% of respondents maintained that they would complain if they found that their personal data had been misused.
	"Misuse of personal data by third parties" was the second greatest concern when purchasing on the Internet out of five categories investigated; the highest being "money loss due to interception of credit card information."
	Only 5% of respondents were aware of the fact that their personal data might be transferred to a place outside of Hong Kong. This happens because data users either export the data to a processing centre in another country or because they engage in outsourcing to third parties located abroad e.g. credit card billings or a call centre.

The opinion survey was first conducted in 1997 and successive surveys have enabled the PCPD to track changes in perceptions and attitudes towards privacyrelated issues over the years. At a very general level what is striking about some of the findings is that they have returned consistent scores e.g. privacy and the Internet. This suggests that time has not dulled the enthusiasm for privacy in the community and issues that were considered important, or received a high ranking, some years ago continue to evoke similar responses.