Data Privacy Act of 2011, Comment

Data Privacy Act of 2011

Comment:

The Data Privacy Act of 2011 in its declaration of policy recognized the privacy of communication as a fundamental human right and the importance of information and communications technology in nation-building. Along with this declaration, is the statement of the State’s obligation of ensuring that such communications and information are secured and protected.

The Act covers the processing of all types of personal information, defining processing as any operation or set of operations performed upon personal information including, but not limited to, the collection, recording, organization, storage, updating or modification, retrieval, consultation, use, consolidation, blocking, erasure or destruction of data. It also covers natural and juridical persons involved in personal information processing such as personal information controllers and processors. However, some information are not covered, among those are information about all individual who is or was an officer or employee of a government institution that relates to the position or functions of the individual, information relating to any discretionary benefits of a financial nature, personal information processed for journalistic, artistic, literary or research purposes, and personal information originally collected from residents of foreign jurisdictions in accordance with the laws of those foreign jurisdictions.

The Act laid down the requirements for lawful processing of personal information, rights of the data subject, and the penalties for unauthorized processing, accessing, improper disposal, wrongful processing of personal information.

At first look on the Data Privacy Act of 2011, I thought they were just words and letters passing my eyes, the Act was worded very technically, that I myself had a hard time getting through the definition part alone. I think the words used to define the technical terms, were, in themselves, technical. I think it is a short coming of the act that it did not give more attention to the web where there is more threat. I also think that mere establishing a commission is not enough to implement said law and to guarantee protection.

After getting the hang of all the technical terms, I now come to the more important matter which is, is there really a need for such a law? In the modern day that we are in, and with all the marketing schemes that there are, and the hype to take advantage of freebees, we are easily drawn to give out our name, our number, and some information. Ever received a telemarketing call? Where do you think they get your information? We may not realize it yet, but this is a product of lack of legislation on data processing, that is lack of protection on our part. I think it is now time to enact a law that would protect one’s privacy in personal information. A lot of people have not realized yet the dangers of giving away personal information without protection.