WITH the advancement of the internet nowadays, data protection is becoming more and more important to users. There are many cases of data and identity thefts affecting users and often even without them realising it. Therefore, it is paramount that users are given the means to protect their personal data with the help of the government via a relevant legal framework.

Companies collect data from users to use them for their marketing purposes, and some even sell the data to data brokers to gain profit. This is unscrupulous and may cause harm to the users and subjecting them to negative influence. Unintentionally, this creates a surveillance economy that is harmful and unhealthy.

Data protection can be achieved by following the four general principles proposed by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple.

First, users should be given the right to minimise their personal data collection by companies and authorities. Users should be given some flexibility on the type of data they wish to provide. Companies should not demand too many mandatory data fields during data collection.

Second, users have the right to know what data are collected from them and how the collectors will use the data. Currently, such information is not readily available to users.

Third, users should be given the right by the companies to delete and amend their collected personal data as and when necessary. Refusal by users to provide certain data should not be used by companies to deny services to them.

Fourth, all users have the right to be guaranteed secure storage of all their personal data.

The three pillars of data protection comprise users, technology and the law. Data protection is a fundamental right of users. To achieve this, an appropriate legal framework based on the four principles above has to be provided by the government to protect users from malicious data collection and usage.  The legal framework should lay out clearly the rewards and the penalties with regards to data protection and violation.

There are various advanced technologies available to the users to protect their data. Some examples are encryption, malware detectors, hardened operating systems, hardened software and hardened hardware. This represents the personal effort on data protection by the users. However, this is not enough, and we require the government’s intervention for this endeavour to succeed. This is where a legal framework comes into the big picture.

Data protection is everyone’s responsibility. However, some companies refuse to do it voluntarily. Therefore, it is important to have the relevant laws to ensure compliance and level the competitive playing field for all companies.  If the appropriate legal framework is enacted timely in RMK12, it will prepare our country to progress towards the next stage in the cyber world. As many developing countries are still lagging in this area, Malaysia should grab the opportunity to be in the forefront in data protection and thus giving us a substantial competitive edge in the global arena.

*Goh Chien Le is a Senior Lecturer at  Faculty of Computing and Informatics Multimedia University.

**The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.