{"id":26834,"date":"2019-05-07T12:50:59","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T04:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zegal.com\/?p=26834"},"modified":"2024-12-27T18:07:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T10:07:04","slug":"data-privacy-and-gdpr-what-it-means-for-your-business-in-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zegal.com\/en-nz\/blog\/post\/data-privacy-and-gdpr-what-it-means-for-your-business-in-hong-kong\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Privacy and GDPR – What it means for your business in Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Long Overdue Update of Data Protection Law<\/h4>\n

I remember watching an episode of The West Wing where a United States Supreme Court candidate was being vetted for a seat on the court. President Bartlett (played by Martin Sheen, who to this day is regularly added to ballots as a real life candidate by voters) and the senior White House staff wanted to know where the candidate stood on the major issue. Certainty was thrown into doubt when a comment about the candidate’s stance on the right to privacy was brought to light and as a result, a member of the fictional President\u2019s senior staff Sam Seaborn, refused to support the candidate. He pontificated: <\/span>“It’s not just about abortion, it’s about the next 20 years. In the ’20s and ’30s it was the role of government. ’50s and ’60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I’m talking about the Internet. I’m talking about cell phones. I’m talking about health records and who’s gay and who’s not.<\/em>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron Sorkin and the writers of The West Wing had foreshadowed the defining legal discourse in the past two decades: Data privacy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Technological advances will inevitably outpace the development of the law that governs those very advances, so it\u2019s a welcome change whenever a set of more comprehensive and current regulations appear. One major (not so) recent addition to the law of data privacy is the <\/span>European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)<\/b>. The GDPR was adopted in 2016, came into force on 25 May 2018, and has consequently replaced the EU Data Protection Directive 95\/46\/EC. It is the single most significant change to data protection law in the European Union in more than twenty years, with serious and far-reaching effects to businesses and consumers around the globe\u2014including those in Hong Kong<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I for one welcome the GDPR essentially raising the bar for data protection all over the world. Accountability towards consumers through transparency is critical in an age where consumer data is so readily available and so effortlessly disseminated to businesses. However, this also means that companies in Hong Kong might have to mandate data compliance with the new standards set by the GDPR, especially businesses that conduct transactions with EU partners and consumers. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Application of the GDPR<\/b><\/h5>\n

Article 3<\/b> of the GDPR determines whom the GDPR affects:<\/span><\/p>\n