­­Greetings, fellow privacy professionals.

Hope you are safe and well, and Happy New Year, as this is my first blog for 2021!

I would like to thank Dorothy Chau who completed her co-chair tenure end of 2020 and welcome Timothy Ma from Tencent and Hatty Siu from Deloitte joining the IAPP Hong Kong KnowledgeNet Chapter as the 2021 co-chairs who will work alongside Carolyn Bigg and Bernard Tan to organize some great thought leadership sessions throughout 2021 for our members. I have seen some of the topics and am very excited for the next KNet to take place shortly.

Before we move onto 2021 topics, I would like to discuss one of the important activities by Hong KongPrivacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling. She recently updated the Legislative Council Panel on Constitutional Affairs 18 Jan., regarding the work of the Office of the PCPD's work in 2020 and its strategic focus for 2021.

For those interested, you can view the full text here, and it’s great to see an extra commitment to education and training on privacy-related topics in 2021. I would like to also take this opportunity to thank the PCPD and Ivan Chan for providing an insightful presentation on the PDPO in relation to my Master of Science (fintech and data analytics) class at the School of Business at HKBU. This year, the IAPP will also sponsor the Westin Book Award Scholarship to one of the top students in the class, and it’s great to see that the course has a blend of industry speakers from global companies to provide real-life case studies, as well as the support of the IAPP and PCPD.  

In other regional news, on 22 Jan., the 1st Association of Southeast Asian Nations Digital Ministers’ Meeting approved the ASEAN Data Management Framework and Model Contractual Clauses for Cross Border Data Flows. The initiatives were developed by the Working Group on Digital Data Governance chaired by Singapore. The DMF provides a step-by-step guide for businesses and SMEs to put in place a data management system, which includes data governance structures and safeguards. Good data management practices are key to helping businesses unlock the value of data while ensuring adequate safeguards. The PDPC’s additional guidance to companies in Singapore that wish to utilize the MCCs in their business contracts is available. 

Turning to COVID-19 privacy updates, in India, the government has made it mandatory for people to link their mobile numbers to their Aadhaar card in order to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. But the talk in the worldwide community, now that vaccines are more widely available, is the topic of “vaccine passports” for international travel. There are mixed views on this, as some in Europe are split on this, but the World Tourism Organization says it must welcome this as an essential travel document to help restart international tourism. Those in the privacy community, like U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office, have provided caution on data privacy concerns with this type of initiative.

Look forward to working with the new IAPP co-chairs to bring you current privacy topics and more industry sharing in 2021!

Keep safe; keep secure.