MANILA, Philippines - The National Privacy Commission (NPC) will form a data privacy council composed of representatives from both the government and the private sector to ensure protection of data collected from the public.
“We believe that one of the most efficient ways to disseminate any new circulars as well as to build awareness and accountability is to form a data privacy council,” said NPC deputy commissioner Damian Mapa yesterday.
He said the council, which will be constituted this year, will be composed of representatives from various sectors that handle significant amount of data, particularly from regulated industries such as banking and finance.
The council will be tasked to assist the NPC in ensuring that the provisions of the data privacy act and other related circulars are being followed.
During a forum on data privacy in Makati City yesterday, Mapa called on representatives from the private sector to comply with the provisions of the Data Privacy Act, particularly the designation of data protection officers (DPO).
Under the law, DPOs are defined as the individual or group of people accountable for the organization’s compliance with the privacy law.
“The DPO is essentially tasked to champion people’s privacy rights from within his or her organization. In so doing, the DPO is able to minimize the risks of privacy breaches, address underlying problems and reduce the damage arising from breaches if and when they do occur,” privacy commissioner Raymond Liboro said. - Janvic Matero