PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION POLICY: ENSURING EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF DATA PRIVACY POLICIES IN PRIVATE HIGHER INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, Kolej Universiti Islam Perlis, Malaysia As digital technology develops globally, the protection of personal data in the commercial sector becomes extremely important. Cases of selling data to third parties are increasing, and the government is required to tighten provisions in personal protection laws. Therefore, the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (Act 709) was passed by the Parliament of Malaysia for the purpose of regulating the processing of personal data and to prevent the misuse of the personal data in commercial transactions. The Act confers rights on Data Subjects in relation to the collection, use and or retention (processing) of their Personal Data, and places obligations on Data Users. The Personal Data Protection Order (Group Data Users) 2013 lists the categories of data users who need to register with Personal Data Protection Department. One of group data users is the education sector including educational institutions and private higher education registered under the Private Higher Education Institutions Act 1996 (Act 555). As data users, private higher education institutions are responsible for protecting Personal Data of two categories of data subjects, namely students and employees in the institution. The obligation including to exercise an appropriate policies and procedures to safeguard the Personal Data collected, to maintain data accuracy, and to prevent unauthorized disclosure. This paper aims to measure the implementation of personal data protection laws including the formulation of operational policies and procedures in private higher education institutions. This will be done by looking at the provisions from the Act regarding the principles of data protection as well as the duties for compliance to the legislation. Furthermore, non-compliance of the Act commits an offence and on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding RM500,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or both. The study also seeks to determine what are the challenges in implementing the Act successfully.