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Police response to PCPD's report on Police data leakage incidents
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     The following is the Police response to the two investigation reports on Police data leakage incidents released by the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) today (Oct 24):

     Police respect the release of two investigation reports on Police data leakage incidents by PCPD.

     For the first report which is about the loss of police notebooks and Fixed Penalty Tickets (FPTs), Police will study it carefully and follow up on the recommendations appropriately.  Police have an establishment of over 30,000 police officers and most of them carry and use notebooks when on duty. The reported data leakage incidents therefore only involve individual officers.  

     For the second report which relates to the investigation of two incidents where data leakage was suspected to be caused by an Internet file sharing software ˇ§Foxyˇ¨, PCPD concluded that the Force has taken all reasonably practicable steps to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents since 2008 and there was no contravention of the relevant requirements by the Force.

     Police reiterate that we attach great importance to information security and data protection. We will conduct thorough investigation into each incident and handle any breach of regulations by Force members in a serious manner.

     The Support Wing has conducted a comprehensive review of the internal guidelines on police notebooks since last year. A number of procedural guidelines have been implemented to strengthen the monitoring mechanism.  In addition, a special working group was set up to review holistically the procedures of handling government records (including police notebooks and FPTs) and a number of measures have been recommended to improve current policies and procedures.

     Led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations), the Information Security Working Group was set up in 2008 to study and formulate strategies to enhance information security and to adopt various measures to prevent data leakage.  The Force has implemented a series of measures to ensure the security of information systems and relevant procedures are maintained at the highest level. The data leakage incidents in recent years did not relate to the Police information systems.

     Police will continue to raise Force membersˇ¦ sensitivity and awareness towards information security and privacy protection as well as the importance of compliance through a series of educational and training action plans, such as working groups, training days, noticeboard messages, information security guidelines and seminars.

     Apart from conducting timely review of our policies, procedures and guidelines, Police will continue to adopt various measures to ensure that our systems and procedures are maintained at the highest information security level. Training of officers will also be enhanced to ensure that the policies and measures in place can cope with the challenges resulting from the rapid development of information technology.

Police Report No.312

Ends/Thursday, October 24, 2013
Issued at HKT 19:29

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