Introduction
The protection of privacy in relation to personal data is the concern of every person in the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) Office. We respect personal data and are committed to fully complying with the data protection principles and all relevant provisions of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486) (PDPO) which apply to any person (data user) that controls the collection, holding, processing or use of personal data and any person (data subject) who is the subject of such data.
Personal data means any data relating to a living individual from which it is practicable for the identity of the individual to be directly or indirectly ascertained and in a form in which access to or processing of the data is practicable. Personal data covers both factual information and expressions of opinions contained in any document, including documents in writing and other forms of documents, such as discs, tapes, films and other such devices.
The following data protection principles will be observed.
There are three broad categories of personal data held in the EOC Office. They are personal data contained in:
The records described in A above are maintained by either the Complaint Services Division or the Legal Service Division. The records described in B and C above are maintained by the Corporate Planning and Services Division.
Personal data held in:
The EOC Office recognises an individual’s right of access to and correction of personal data in accordance with the PDPO. To ensure compliance with the PDPO, data access and correction requests to the EOC Office are handled by:
Any request for access to personal data and correction should be made in writing to the division head concerned. All requests will be promptly attended to and the response will be made no later than 40 days after its receipt. For correction requests, a written confirmation together with a copy of the corrected personal data will be provided to the requestors after correction has been made. Where a request is refused, the requestor will be advised in writing of the refusal and the reason for refusal within 40 days after its receipt. Particulars of the refusal to supply data, refusal to correct data and the reasons for so doing will be recorded in the respective data protection log books. The log books will be kept for at least 4 years and available for inspection by the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data. Any appeal on refusals of data access and/or correction requests should be directed to the Executive Director (Operations) / Chairperson who will advise on the appropriate action to be taken.
Exemptions to Access
The PDPO provides the following exemptions from the obligations to provide access to personal data:
The following is maintained to ensure compliance with the PDPO:
The EOC Office will charge for each data access request a processing fee for complying with the request (see section 28(2) of the PDPO) as follows:
(i) HK$2.5 per page for paper record1; or (ii) HK$55 for the simple production of a CD/CD-ROM/DVD/audio/video record2; or (iii) HK$7 per minute of an audio record which may require editing work like redacting any personal data relating to a third party3; or(iv) A variable fee based on lowest quotation for the production of a CD/CD-ROM/DVD/audio/video record which requires complicated editing work4; or(v) A fee which varies according to the actual amount of audio recordings to be transcribed in the form of a transcript. The variable fee will be based on either
The EOC may refuse to comply with a data access request unless and until any fee imposed by the EOC for complying with the request has been paid (See section 28(5) of the PDPO).
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Note:
The EOC may refuse to comply with Data Access Requests(s) in the circumstances specified in section 20 of the PDPO.
Revised in November 2020