In a one-hour meeting with officials from the Personal Data Protection Office (GPDP) yesterday, members of the New Macau Association (ANM) and GPDP officials have discussed the Personal Data Protection Law in Macau and the international standard regarding personal data protection.
Former ANM president Jason Chao spoke to the Times after the meeting and said that Macau’s Personal Data Protection Law is lagging behind current international standards. He also suggested that there is growing concern among some countries and academic institutions about what he describes as the abuse of the law and its impact on Macau’s rule of law.
Jason Chao said that while the GPDP officials claimed that Macau will be closely following the international trend regarding personal data protection, the territory’s law is actually becoming outdated. He used the recent civil referendum as an example, saying that Macau’s law on illegal transfer of personal data is not compatible with current technologies.
“At the end of the civil referendum, GPDP delivered to us a letter, saying that they were going to investigate into the civil referendum (…) because our IP address is in the United States. Therefore, they wanted to investigate the so-called [illegal] data transfer to the US during the referendum,” he said.
With the emergence of new technologies like cloud computing in recent years, Jason Chao said that other countries in the world, especially in Europe, no longer focus on where the data is stored, but put more emphasis on whether there is enough protection.
“While we are surfing one website, it is possible that several servers throughout the world are serving us at the same time. We won’t know where to find our data. Therefore, I felt confused when I received the letter that said GPDP was attempting to investigate the civil referendum from such a perspective (illegal data transfer) because GPDP should know these new [technological trends] really well,” he said.
Moreover, the former ANM president said that GPDP’s alleged abuse of the Personal Data Protection Law (the office accused the civil referendum organizers of breaching the Personal Data Protection Act) has led countries and academic institutions to question the rule of law in Macau.
He said that while he was attending an international conference in the week of the civil referendum, representatives from two European countries asked him to explain why the Personal Data Protection Law had been abused and misinterpreted.
“This shows that GPDP’s abuse of the law has seriously damaged the image of Macau. They (the representatives) are only concerned with investment. Many foreign investors are concerned with whether the rule of law actually has a place in this issue,” he said.
“Also, when we were discussing collaboration with some academic institutions recently, they were worried that (…) they would be harassed by the Macau government through abuse of power when they were conducting academic research here. It is obvious that both the academics and overseas investors think that the rule of law in Macau is unreliable,” said Jason Chao.
He added that the GPDP officials did not give any comments, only thanking him for his opinions. He said that he was dissatisfied by the fact that government officials no longer bother to even excuse or justify their actions, instead ignoring matters entirely. He also slammed the Macau government for its lack of initiation in amending and updating the Personal Data Protection Law.
No follow up on civil referendum prosecution
Jason Chao said that since reporting the alleged abuse of power by the GPDP to the Public Prosecution Office (MP) there have been no updates from the MP. He is not certain whether the MP is trying to get the whole case, including GPDP’s allegation against him, to end quietly. “Let’s see how bad Macau’s rule of law can become,” he said.
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