The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data received nearly 3,000 complaints in the first half, a surge of more than 60 percent year on year.

Commissioner Ada Chung said on Saturday the jump was mainly driven by AI adoption, with personal data being collected and used at speed and on a massive scale.

“Because in the digital age, with the prevalence of social media platforms and the prevalence of the Internet, citizens are used to communicating through the social media platforms and they will provide all sorts of personal data to these platforms," she said after a Commercial Radio show.

Chung also attributed the spike in complaints to heightened public awareness of the need for data protection.

IT-related complaints, which came in at more than 800, accounted for a major portion of the grievances.

Chung stressed that while many companies had put third parties in charge of their information systems, that did not mean they could let their guard down.

“I do believe that the work can be contracted out,” Chung said.

“However, the responsibility still lies with the data users; that means the company or the organisation itself still has the primary responsibility to safeguard the personal data in their possession.”

Chung urged companies to also monitor the work of the contractors.

Her office recently launched a data privacy and web security scan programme for schools, NGOs and SMEs to help them identify potential risks and vulnerabilities in data protection free of charge, as they usually lacked the resources to carry out such checks.

She said the programme, scheduled to run until November 16, could be extended if demand from groups is overwhelming.



Edited by Robert Kemp