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September 5, 2009

POSITION OF DATA PRIVACY IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Each country has their own law on data privacy. The following list contains of data privacy law by some county or region in this world.There are as follow:

United Kingdom: UK Data Protection Act 1998
The existence of UK Data Protection Act 1998 provides comprehensive data protection in United Kingdom.
European Union: European Union Data Protection Directive 1998
It deals on the protection of individual with regards to the processing of personal data and on the free movement on such data. It is also the world's most comprehensive data protection legislation.
Canada: The Privacy Act-July 1983
Hong Kong: Personal Data Ordinance(The Ordinance)
Japan: Personal Information Protection Law ( Act )
Basically, the purpose of the Act is to protects the rights and interest of individuals.
Netherlands: Personal Data Protection Act 2000
Brazil: currently the privacy protection governed by Article 5 of the 1988 Constitution where it generally stated that all persons are equal before the law, Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country being ensured of inviolability of the right to life, to liberty, to equality, to security and property.

Data protection in United State.

The right to privacy was recognized in several international agreement such as Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights where it stated that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks his honour or reputation. It also suggested that everyone has right to the protection of law. In United States, there is no comprehensive data protection legislation.The term privacy does not stated in US Constitution. However, US Supreme Court has ruled the right to privacy from various amendment to the constitution. The US Supreme Court first recognized the right to information privacy in the case of Whalen v. Roe. Since there was no comprehensive data protection legislation, there has been number of law that been enacted based on the court and also international agreement.The most important act that can be refer is the Privacy Act of 1974 and also The Computer Security Act of 1987.These two laws specifically deals with personal information held by federal government and do not have any authority over the collection of personal information held by the private sectors. The Privacy Act is to protect personal information in federal data bases and it also give individual some rights over information contained in those databases.The basic principles in both act is to provide individual with the right of access to information about themselves and it requires that personal information only can be disclosed with the individual consent. Besides that, another law that provide for data privacy protection is The Computer Security Act of 1987. It deals with personal information in the federal record systems and it also give protection towards the security of sensitive personal information in federal record system.

Data protection in Europe.

In Europe country, there are two national policies that deals with data privacy protection. The related law are Council of Europe's Convention on Data Protection and also Europe Data Directive. In Europe privacy law, it covers the privacy protection both for public and also private sectors. The Convention recognized the right to privacy as one of the fundamental human rights.The council concern with the processing of personal data and in the late of 1960's , one survey had been conducted with regards to human rights. Based on the surveys, it concluded that the existing law did not provide adequate protection of individuals . Due to that concerns, there are lots of efforts to solve the problems in order to give better protection of individuals.

Meanwhile, the EU Data Directive was adopted in October 1995 . It is specifically acknowledged the individual rights to privacy.
The EU Data Privacy sets standards for the treatment of the of personal data collected from individuals, the right for individuals to access, notification and correction.

In conclusion, Malaysia does not have a comprehensive data protection as in other countries. If we compared the law of data protection in US, when the US citizens deals with the government bodies, their data privacy will be protected. However, if someone dealing with individuals or business, there is no clear provisions regarding the data protection.This situation is different in United Kingdom where they have sufficient data protection because they have UK Data Protection Act 1998(Article: Information Privacy in Malaysia: A Legal Prospective [2005)]1 MLJ xxv.)

8 comments:

nn said...

fatin, jangan lupa keratan akhbar yang naima dah tunjukkan tu. kalau boleh, tolong komen sikit pasal artikel tu (cara untuk guard private data)...

and dont forget to drop by http://computer-evidence.blogspot.com

nadhirah na'iemah :)

.b.e.d.d.y. said...

what about the law on data privacy in malaysia?
is it about the same as in US?
:D

siti zubaidah helmaterlidi-computer evidence

CYBER LAW STUDENTS said...

Nadhirah Na'iemah: The article from MEGA, Utusan Malaysia September 10, 2009 at p.23 is an article to promote products that may protect domestic digital data. yes, public should know that there are various tools and gadgets out there that may protect their personal data.

we will make further research regarding this matter. thanks for highlighting.:)

fatin.d-privacy

CYBER LAW STUDENTS said...

Siti Zubaidah: our next post will anwer your question. thanks for dropping by.

ain nabilah.d-privacy

N.HIDAYAT said...

As what fatin had mentioned in previous post, im looking forward for our country to have it's own Data Protection Act...as it is very essential in order to safeguard everyone's personal data...

hidayat-computer evidence

Renuka said...

How about the Asean countries. Are their position is same like Malaysia or they had thier own act. For example Singapore, Thailand and so on. Thank You.

CYBER LAW STUDENTS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
CYBER LAW STUDENTS said...

Most of Asean countries adopted common law. So, their protection on data privacy similar with Malaysia. For example, in Thailand they have Personal Data Protection Bill. Addition, based on my reading until February 2009, Singapore do not have general data privacy scheme. For further information on position of data privacy in Asean country link to Hyperlink Code