TNAG-0821-FCO40-1028-Study-of-computerisation-of-personal-data-and-threat-to-priv-1978 — Page 4

AIR MAIL

1

Ref: CR 10/511/77

RTR with 1977 Фа

Dear John

HKK 413/.....

RALIVIO HEA

INDEX

GO

*.

AENDÉCRETARIAT.

HỌNG HONG

21st February, 1978.

For craft reply please

Computerisation of Personal Data

معا

In your letter HKK 413/1 of 8th July last, you commented on this question in the Hong Kong context and said that "irrespective of how Hong Kong sees the matter, the whole subject of privacy may well require delicate handling for U.K. political reasons". I did in fact have a very useful session with the Secretary of the Data Protection Committee in September and we are now awaiting the publication of the Committee's report. We have in fact just written to him to enquire whether it is now available; or, failing that, whether he can give us an up-to-date picture of the Committee's current thinking.

2.

Jelles

Mattzels 1972 pp3

In the meantime, we have in the last six months been concentrating on the possibility of setting up a population database in Hong Kong which, in practice, simply means that all our large computer management systems would share a common central core of data of the "name, rank and number" type which can produce substantial economies in the hard- ware required and, just as importantly, can keep the whole system much more up-to-date than would be the case if all the systems were completely separate. We have come to the conclusion that it would be very advantageous to establish such a common core of data and are now trying to persuade Finance Committee to provide the necessary funds.

3.

Returning to the general issue of computerisation and privacy, we hope to bend our minds to this subject in the coming months as soon as we have the findings of the U.K. Committee. Meantime we have obtained a copy of a report prepared by the Hong Kong Computer Society, the conclusions in which are that professional codes of practice are no longer adequate to prevent abuses and that legislation is necessary based on eight principles:-

1.

Property right in personal information accruing to the data subject;

2. Right to inspect files containing his personal

information, provided he can establish his identity;

J.A.B. Stewart, Esq., OBE,

Head of Department,

Foreign & Commonwealth Office,

Hong Kong & General Department, King Charles Street,

LONDON, SW1A 2AH

/3.

- 2 -

3. Data must be presented in a form in which the

subject can understand it;

4. Subject must be able to contest accuracy,

pertinence and timeliness of data and in case

of credit worthiness for example, to add a comment;

5. Legal remedy if refused access etc.;

6. Data subject must be able to review the accesses

to his files despite the likely expense of this. Seen as CRUCIAL WEAPON in individual's arsenal;

7. Licensing authority required;

8. Legislation to apply to both private sector and

Government.

It is interesting that the Society did not identify any undesirable practices currently going on in Hong Kong in this field; here, as in U.K., the situation seems to be that the threat is a potential one in the future rather than a present one.

4. We were struck by the quote from your letter contained in my opening paragraph and I wonder whether you could enlarge on what you mean by this?

5.

To sum up, we really haven't moved forward very much in this field over the past months except that we have got a better picture of thinking in other territories.

Чам

ever

fan

(I.M. Lightbody)

Secretary for Administration

IML: isr