The Hong Kong government’s top regulator on privacy, Commissioner Stephen Lau has intimated that web sites which collect visitor’s personal data without their prior knowledge are breaking government regulations. The South China Morning Post reports that Mr Lau’s comments were in response to a survey by his office of special access required (SAR) websites. The survey was intended to check compliance with the government’s Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. Under the terms of the privacy Ordinance, owners of web sites that do not carry a warning if the site collects personal information must add one – if notified to do so by the government. If the web site continues to collect information without a warning, the owners of the site may be liable to a criminal prosecution. In addition, Mr Lau claims that all the tenants of the Ordinance apply in cyberspace, saying that internet users have the right to ask their ISPs, or web sites that collected their personal details, to divulge any data that had been collected. The increase in government interest over net privacy has been in part provoked by the rising clamor over ‘spam’; although the problem is still relatively minor in Hong Kong.
