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.
