Episode 41 - Hong Kong and Data Privacy

Show Notes

One country, two systems – that’s the 50-year agreement that led to Hong Kong’s becoming part of China in 1997. This remains an evolution in progress. Hong Kong retains many of its systems independent of the PRC and yet is part of China. What does this mean for data privacy and the rules that apply to business in this powerhouse commercial center? Padraig Walsh, a privacy leader at the prominent Hong Kong law firm of Tanner De Witt, provides insight into how multinational firms should view Hong Kong for digital services. Hong Kong’s 1996 data privacy law was a pioneer at the time in establishing a legal framework for protecting personal data and regulating companies that handle data flows as controllers or processors. If one asks is it like China’s or the EU’s or the USA’s approach to data privacy, the answer is that it is much more like the EU or USA approach than China’s. It was adopted in the final months of British sovereignty. If you have ideas for more interviews or stories, please email [e-mail].

What is Data Privacy Detective?

The internet in its blooming evolution makes personal data big business – for government, the private sector and denizens of the dark alike. The Data Privacy Detective explores how governments balance the interests of personal privacy with competing needs for public security, public health and other communal goods. It scans the globe for champions, villains, protectors and invaders of personal privacy and for the tools and technology used by individuals, business and government in the great competition between personal privacy and societal good order.

We’ll discuss how to guard our privacy by safeguarding the personal data we want to protect. We’ll aim to limit the access others can gain to your sensitive personal data while enjoying the convenience and power of smartphones, Facebook, Google, EBay, PayPal and thousands of devices and sites. We’ll explore how sinister forces seek to penetrate defenses to access data you don’t want them to have. We’ll discover how companies providing us services and devices collect, use and try to exploit or safeguard our personal data.

And we’ll keep up to date on how governments regulate personal data, including how they themselves create, use and disclose it in an effort to advance public goals in ways that vary dramatically from country to country. For the public good and personal privacy can be at odds. On one hand, governments try to deter terrorist incidents, theft, fraud and other criminal activity by accessing personal data, by collecting and analyzing health data to prevent and control disease and in other ways most people readily accept. On the other hand, many governments view personal privacy as a fundamental human right, with government as guardian of each citizen’s right to privacy. How authorities regulate data privacy is an ongoing balance of public and individual interests. We’ll report statutes, regulations, international agreements and court decisions that determine the balance in favor of one or more of the competing interests. And we’ll explore innovative efforts to transcend government control through blockchain and other technology.

If you have ideas for interviews or stories, please email [e-mail].