Technology News From The Philippines
We must make sure technology enhances our rights, instead of undermining them. True progress, after all, should never be at the expense of our fundamental rights.
The National Privacy Commission revealed on Thursday night, Nov. 12, that it has issued a cease and desist order against Lisensya.info, a website that falsely claims to be associated with the Land Transportation Office.
Netizens claimed the data the site provided were accurate, raising suspicions of a leak in LTO’s database as these are the types of information the LTO collects from motorists for registration.
PLDT also recently approved the creation of a Data Privacy and Information Security Charter – said to be the first among publicly-listed companies in Asia.
Repurposing personal data is punishable under the Data Privacy Act (DPA), the NPC said in an advisory issued on October 23 in response to complaints from citizens against business establishments over mishandling and misuse of contact-tracing data, such as a customer’s name, address, age, cellphone number and e-mail.
The National Privacy Commission (NPC) has issued a circular in response to numerous complaints that online lenders were illegally using personal data of clients and those of others on their contact lists, causing damage to their reputation and violating their rights as data subjects.
As a privacy advocate, I feel there are so many other things to be said about how the government has handled this task of helping businesses set up their respective contact tracing systems.
The NPC said the chief concerns were the improper use of logbooks and the lack of appropriate data-protection measures that left in the open filled-out contact-tracing forms that contain customers’ data, such as names, addresses and contact details, which other people could see.
