2013

Secret criminal records of juvenile offenders will be publicly revealed if they reoffend as adults, under a plan being considered by the Victoria (AUS) State Government. Crime victims applauded the move, which comes after decades of policy dictating the identity of child criminals be kept secret. Under current laws, the criminal records of juvenile offenders and their identities cannot be revealed, even if they reoffend, without court permission. Supreme Court challenges to name child brutes have previously failed. The State Government is considering a proposal to change the Children Youth and Family Act and the Corrections Act to allow criminal records of juvenile offenders to be made public if they offended as adults. Under the plan, youth offenders would have to have committed serious crimes, such as murder, manslaughter or sexual offences. Petty thefts and minor offences would not be revealed as part of the plan, keeping in line the ethos of giving the kiddie crims a chance to rehabilitate. The offences committed as juveniles would only be revealed in the adult court system for serious crimes and for repeat offenders.

"China 's Personal Information Provisions, which regulates the collection and use of personal information by providers of Telecommunications, Internet and information services within China, came into force on September 1. It will affect a wide range of consumer-facing websites, including corporate sites, product information sites, and social media pages. The Personal Information Provisions follow the same framework as China 's Decision by the Standing Committee of the National People 's Congress on the Strengthening of the Protection of Network Information, but provide significantly more detail by addressing the collection and use of personal information of individual users (i.e., passwords, names, date of birth, addresses, account numbers and so forth, as well as metadata about a user 's habits, including the time and location of the use of the services). From a compliance perspective, the Personal Information Provisions have important business implications for those who are considered ""Service Providers,"" including many commercial websites. The method and scope of collection and usage must now be specified and consent from data subjects must now be obtained. Those compliance obligations, in and of themselves, are important changes brought about by the recent legislation and may require many foreign-invested businesses in China to adjust their current data collection model and practices."

The Hong Kong Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) has issued a new guidance note on preparing Personal Information Collection Statements (PICS) and Privacy Policy Statements (PPS). The guidance note is intended to help organizations prepare clear and informative privacy notices in order to comply with the requirements under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance and the Data Protection Principles (DPPs). Broadly, a PICS statement sets out how a data subject 's personal data will be collected and used by the organization. A PPS statement - which often incorporates a PICS - should also set out the organization 's policies on data retention, data security, and how it will deal with requests for data access and correction. The PICS and PPS statements are required under DPP1 (which requires a data user to inform a data subject of the purpose and manner of collection of their personal data) and DPP5 (which requires a data user to take steps to ensure that a data subject can ascertain the personal data policies and practices of the data user), respectively. The publication of this guidance note by the PCPD now, perhaps suggests that in Hong Kong at least there is a concern with the availability and clarity of PICS and PPS statements.