Privacy watchdog warns smartphone owners over personal data
Privacy commissioner finds many in city havea 'low sense' of the risks that mobile phone applications can have for data stored on them
The privacy watchdog has warned of Hongkongers' "worrying" lack of privacy awareness when using their smartphones.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data issued the warning yesterday after a survey it commissioned found more than half of respondents did not know what personal information stored in their smartphones could be accessed by the apps they download.
"Hong Kong people have a low sense of privacy awareness in the usage of smartphones," Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang Yam-wang said. "They do not understand the potential risks. This is worrying."
The office also revealed that it had received 14 privacy complaints regarding smartphone apps as of September this year. It is the first year that the office has received any such complaints.
In the survey, conducted by the Baptist University's Centre for the Advancement of Social Sciences Research in July, six out of 10 - 58 per cent of the 1,013 polled - said they do not know what information in their smartphones could be accessed by the apps they download.
It also found that half those polled did not know that social networking apps could access their smartphones' contact list and store the names on a server. Just over half - 53 per cent - did not use such protective measures as keylock or antivirus software to protect information on their smartphones.