Data hk is a non-profit initiative of the Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data that facilitates research, awareness and education about personal data protection among both the public and business communities in Hong Kong. Data hk promotes using technology for social good while advocating for improved regulation and enforcement of existing legislation.
Hong Kong first passed its modern data privacy laws in 1995, including Section 33 (Transfer of Personal Data Outside Hong Kong). This section prohibits personal data transfers outside of Hong Kong unless certain conditions are fulfilled, intended to ensure that its level of protection doesn’t significantly decrease when sent abroad. At that time it represented an innovative policy in relation to international norms governing data transfer; at present it remains one of the central elements of Hong Kong’s personal data protection regime.
It requires data users to inform data subjects prior to the collection of their personal data of its purpose, intended recipients, and intended use. Furthermore, PCPD mandates that any new use for which personal data may be transferred requires their voluntary and express consent – this can have considerable practical ramifications; however, guidance exists on how best to meet these obligations such as model clauses for contracts regarding data transfers.
As a best practice, it is ideal to include these provisions as separate clauses in commercial agreements rather than add them as schedules to a main commercial arrangement, making compliance monitoring and enforcement much simpler. Unfortunately, however, due to certain transactions or arrangements this is sometimes not practical or possible and as a result these provisions should be included within main contracts so as to maintain their substance and protections.
The 2019 Hong Kong protests provide an ideal opportunity to consider how data-driven governance and individual data practices relate during times of disagreement. Throughout the protests, it became apparent that social movements could use data-based practices in new and innovative ways in their action repertoire. This was evident through the use of various technologies, such as facial recognition software and sharing protesters’ patterns of movement through public transport usage records; further supplemented with networked and datafied contentious performances. Data was the cornerstone of protesters’ strategies and actions in each instance, showing that it’s the data itself that drives contentious performances – not simply its perception by participants. The Hong Kong protests provide an intriguing prelude to how data and conflict come together in times of contention globally (Flesher Fominaya & Gillan, Citation2019). Thus they serve as a testing ground for new forms of data-based governance that are emerging globally political arena.