Hong Kong’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) has released its Privacy Management Programme: A Best Practice Guide outlining the foundations of privacy management programs. The guide is aimed at providing organisations guidance when they develop or improve programs according to their specific needs.

"Regulatory experience has shown time and again that privacy and data protection cannot be managed effectively if they are merely treated as a legal compliance issue, with little or no involvement of the top management,” said PCPD Allan Chiang at a ceremony earlier this week. “A more effective response in this era of Big Data and rising public expectation for privacy protection is to be proactive and preventative, rather than reactive and remedial.

The PCPD held the ceremony with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, 25 insurance-sector companies, nine telecommunications companies and five other organisations, all of which agreed to implement the principles of the guide.

The banking industry has also indicated support to the PCPD.

“Organisations should embrace personal data privacy protection as part of their corporate governance responsibilities and apply it as a top-down business imperative throughout the organisation,” Chiang said. “A strategic shift from compliance to accountability is required."

-  IAPP Staff