Data Governance in Hong Kong
Data analytics refers to the practice of gathering and interpreting information that allows decision-makers to make more informed choices. Businesses from financial services to insurance and marketing frequently employ this practice for purposes such as measuring customer satisfaction, understanding market trends and finding opportunities for improvement.
Hong Kong has strict privacy laws, which regulate how companies collect, store and use personal data. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data serves as a statutory body that oversees these rules based on international standards that set six data protection principles.
PDPO limits the transfer of personal data outside Hong Kong and requires its protection from unauthorised access, processing, erasure or loss. Furthermore, businesses cannot publish data that identifies an individual without their prior consent, nor make it available to third parties without their knowledge or agreement. Exceptions exist in instances such as protecting national security or international relations, preventing illegal conduct such as terrorist activities or serious misconduct, news reporting legal proceedings and life-threatening emergencies.
Hiring the appropriate personnel to oversee your data governance program is critical. Your team should consist of business and IT subject matter experts; those best suited for these roles should also be adept communicators who can act as intermediaries between business and IT, serving as escalation points between them and your executive sponsor and steering committee.
Your stewards are responsible for overseeing individual datasets to ensure they conform with PDPO requirements, knowing their history, frequency of updates and retention period for each dataset. They should also know which systems this data has passed through as well as any enrichment such as government demographic or economic data or weather-generated updates that may have had an effect.