Privacy and Data Protection

What is privacy rights? It is state of being alone and not watched or disturbed. and als the state of freedom from interference or public attention.

There are 3 component in privacy:
i. Secrecy, information known about individual.
- data privacy such as salary, telephone number and ect.
ii. Anonymity, attention paid to an individual
- don't distract people attention
iii. Solitude, physical access to an individual
- include physical privacy or body privacy.

There's no privacy law in Malaysia but defamation case under criminal law. The discussion on the right to privacy in the wake of IT and multimedia envirnment lead to the question of personal data collection. The advanacement of such technology enables he instusion of privacy of a person wihout any necessary physical action. This area of privacy is called as "information privacy"

The most famous cybercrime that happen in cyberspace is "phising". Some computer expert try to use fake website to obtain other people's account. Those experts steal the people and create a new personal account to do illegal transaction with other people over the cyberspace.

The protection of informational privacy issues arises in ICT advancement, where one's right personal data and information is gradually thereatened. Many jurisdiction are trying to formulate appropriate regulatory framework to control this issues.

On the other hand, United States and European Community has different attitude when handle this issues. US has not traditional jurisdictions with regard to protection of personal data privacy. EU has been the mot active jurisdictions on this subject. Legislations in US are not comprehensive and more sporadic, they have minimum government intervention and weaker enforcement compare to EU which with more comprehensive legislation, deep involvement of government and with strong enforcement aspect.

By date, Malaysia government is in the process of legislating the law on Personal Data Protection. The law is meant for any individuals ad institutions including government, businesses, and e-commerce player. The main data protection principles include:

1. The personal data shall be collected fairly and lawfully
2. Purpose of collection of personal data
3. Use of personal data
4. Disclosure of personal data
5. Accuracy of personal data
6. Duration of retention of personal data
7. Access to and correction of personal data
8. Security of personal data
9. Information to be generally available