The Law That Will Make Investments
The Call Centers of Cebu are seen as one of the best and most competitive in the country. Due to this gained recognition, the BPO industry has made Cebu as one of the rising cities in Asia. This alone has attracted many foreign companies to invest in the city.
But despite this growing popularity, there are still some foreign companies that doubt the security offered by outsourcing companies in Cebu.
It is given that when a company outsources some of its services to a third-party service provider, their data and their customers’ data are also being handed over to another entity. The protection of the privacy of these data is being put to risk.
Before, the BPO Industry of Philippines bore no legal act or law that would claim to protect the data of a company or any person that are being transmitted online. This deficiency of security has made many investors and other outsourcing industry players to doubt the capacity of the BPO industry of Philippines to provide efficient and secured outsourcing services to foreign clients.
Many debates have surfaced between parties, questioning and protecting the country from its capability to be a world-class BPO provider. Thus, a bill was drafted to answer the issue. Bill 2965 on data privacy requires the preservation of personal data collected by public and private entities.
The Bill was sponsored by Sen. Edgardo Angara, the Senate science committee chairman.
The bill was said to help boost the Philippine BPO Industry, in terms of giving full assurance to foreign clients and investors that their data are safe and secure with their third-party service provider located in the country.
Last August 15, 2012, President Benigno Aquino III signed the Data Privacy Act or Republic Act 10173, thus formally making it into a law that will be mandated to all private and public sectors.
“The State recognizes the vital role of information and communications technology in nation-building and its inherent obligation to ensure that personal information in information and communications systems in the government and in the private sector are secured and protected,” the law declares. The law also establishes the creation of a National Privacy Commission, which shall “monitor and ensure compliance of the country with international standards set for data protection.”
Among other provisions, it is mandated to publish a guide to all data protection–related laws on a regular basis.
It can also “compel or petition any entity, government agency or instrumentality to abide by its orders or take action on a matter affecting data privacy.”
The law also has a provision on protection for journalists and their sources, stating that nothing in the act repeals or amends the law that does not compel those in the journalism profession to reveal the sources of leaked news reports.
Meanwhile, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) president and CEO, Benedict Fernandez, is confident that the signing of the Data Privacy Act is another step forward to increasing the confidence of international investors on the BPO services of the country. The law would simply add more investments into the Philippine BPO Industry.
“The Act brings the Philippines to international standards of privacy protection. It is based on standards set by the European Parliament and is aligned with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Information Privacy Framework,” Hernandez said.
Sen. Angara also added that the Cybercrime Prevention Act should also be enacted to provide a legal framework for the detection, apprehension and prosecution of Internet-related crimes like hacking, phishing and spamming.
Angara also said that despite the fact that it was signed into a law, the implementation would still require the training of experts and development of enforcing rules and regulations.
The Philippine government has made another step to further improve its efforts in providing world-class outsourcing services to the world.
About the Author
Publish on 10/09/2012
Jane is a freelance copywriter, with majority of her work focusing on the outsourcing industry.
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It was a good law but they need to analyzed further if their is a human rights violated with that law. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteJacob of BPO Philippines