Hong Kong's watchdog for data privacy sees upsurge in complaints

The sex-photos scandal involving Edison Chen Koon-hei probably started it all.

In early 2008, the city was rocked by circulation on the internet of sexually explicit nude photographs of the singer-actor with female celebrities. The blatant betrayal of privacy marked a turning point in Hongkongers' awareness of privacy issues.

In the few years since there have been more high-profile breaches, including the for-profit sale of the personal data of Octopus card users. As a result, the privacy watchdog is feeling the strain of fielding an increasing number of complaints. There's been a big upsurge in the number of complaints about direct marketing and the unauthorised transfer of data," said Lavinia Chang Yu-ming, deputy privacy commissioner for personal data.

"People are getting direct marketing calls from god knows where, and from businesses that they've never heard of."

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data said it was under pressure to work with less, as extra funding allocated to it had not matched a greater workload.

The work is never ending. Just two weeks ago, AS Watson's supermarket chain ParknShop came under fire for collecting the partial identity card numbers of the members of its loyalty programme, and unclearly stating by whom, and for what purpose, the data it gathered would be used. The privacy watchdog slammed the practice in a report.