­­Greetings, fellow privacy professionals.

As this is my first post for the year, I wanted to wish you a happy 2020 and hope this year will be even better than 2019! I will keep this update more localized to what’s happening in Hong Kong and will discuss other regions moving forward.

At the end of 2019, I was honored to be the master of ceremonies and panel moderator for the “China Cybersecurity Law: New legal and regulatory updates; practical implications and challenges” event. This was the inaugural event organized by the IAPP and Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, and we had a full house of approximately 120 members from the IAPP and PCPD Data Protection Officer’s Club. Norton Rose Fulbright Partner Barbara Li shared updates on the regulatory side, including details on the encryption laws that came into effect 1 Jan. Privacy Commissioner Stephen Wong delivered the keynote and also launched the new booklet, “Introduction to the Regulations in the Mainland of China Concerning Personal Information and Cybersecurity Involved in Civil and Commercial Affairs.” The book is currently only available in Chinese, but the English version of the booklet should be released in due course, so check the PCPD website for more updates. It is great to see the PCPD taking proactive initiatives like this to keep local companies and the public informed.

It has been a busy time for the PCPD. In December, it launched an investigation into a case where a police officer showed a reporter’s Hong Kong identification card to the camera during an altercation. Commissioner Wong’s office released a detailed and comprehensive statement on the event. 

I would like to take this opportunity to also welcome two new co-chairs to the IAPP Hong Kong Chapter, who will work closely with me to continue to promote privacy awareness in Hong Kong through KnowledgeNet events and other educational sessions. Carolyn Bigg is a partner at DLA Piper, Hong Kong, and Bernard Tan is the chief legal counsel for data and cybersecurity at SAP. Both are seasoned experts in their respective fields, and we are honored to have them join the IAPP co-chair family and look forward to working with them. Our first event is tentatively planned for February 2020, and we will be sure to cover some exciting privacy and security topics. We are also launching a new CIPT textbook and look forward to sharing more as I think there has been a growing number of people asking about this, and I'm happy to inform you the wait is over!

Finally, I am excited to see our very first privacy and cybersecurity industry-ready course has been launched at the Hong Kong Baptist University School of Business. This is the inaugural class, and I appreciate the IAPP’s direct involvement to help the next generation of privacy professionals kick-start their careers in privacy with official IAPP content and membership access.

Look forward to sharing more developments in this space.

Keep safe; keep secure.