A round-up of privacy news in Asia during the week.
Malaysia: The Star reports that "enforcement details" of Personal Data Protection Act may come out in November
A newspaper in Malaysia, The Star, has reported that ministry sources say "that enforcement details would be announced as early as next month". If that means that an announcement would be made about the enforcement date, this would be quite consistent with what I was told as well when I made a call to the Department of Personal Data Protection a few months back. Back then another possibility was also that the Act will not come into effect until after the national elections in Malaysia were over. That is still a possibility.
Taiwan Personal Data Protection Act came into effect on October 1 (sans a few sections)
The Taipei Times reports that the Personal Data Protection Act came into effect on October 1, except for a few sections that the Executive Yuan has decided to revise and submit to the Legisative Yuan for final approval. A bit of a huff erupted due to this with some calling the 2 step implementation unconstitutional. You can read a legal alert on the Act from Baker & Mackenzie here.
A What the Heck moment: Privacy concerns over eel-up-bottom case
In New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald reports that a hospital has launched an investigation into how a patient privacy's was breached after it was reported that an eel was stuck up his bottom. The eel was apparently about "the size of a decent sprig of asparagus". Now the hospital authorities are getting quite serious about this breach of a patient's privacy, as you would expect. One thing I am not sure about is how an eel managed to get stuck up the man's bottom ...
