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The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong 2019-20 Annual Report
The 2019-20 Annual Report of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong (PCPD) was tabled in the Legislative Council on 25 November 2020.
The theme of the report is Rising to the Novel Challenges. During the reporting year, the multi-fold challenges faced by PCPD not only stretched the regulatory resilience and stamina of the PCPD, but also brought personal data privacy into the limelight and intensified public discussions and deliberations about how to balance personal data privacy rights against other competing interests.
From mid-June 2019 up to the end of March 2020, the PCPD handled close to 5,000 doxxing-related complaints and cases uncovered by our online patrol. The PCPD witnessed in the second half of 2019 unprecedented weaponisation of personal data, often causing psychological harm to the individuals concerned. The PCPD spared no effort in tackling the problem of doxxing, and wrote to 16 websites, social media platforms or discussion forums over 160 times, urging them to remove 2,867 doxxing web links. If necessary, the PCPD also collaborated with regulatory authorities locally and in different jurisdictions to combat doxxing on social platforms.
PCPD’s work in relation to the privacy issues arising from COVID-19 was another highlight during the reporting year. In particular, the PCPD issued timely advisories to the general public to facilitate the safe and secure use of personal data during the pandemic, including the collection of data from employees by employers, personal data privacy issues relating to the use of videoconferencing software tools and work-from-home arrangements and children privacy, etc.
Download the 2019-20 Annual Report:
