PUBLIC officials play a “very crucial” role in protecting citizens’ right to privacy, according to National Privacy Commission (NPC) Chairman Raymund E. Liboro.
“Without a doubt, personal data is valuable and has to be protected,” the privacy commissioner said in a forum on December 5. “Government is the single largest collector and processor of personal information, and it falls to government agencies like us to ensure that personal data is protected and the privacy of personal data is secured from those with malicious intentions.”
During the first Philippines Data Privacy Summit, Liboro underscored the pivotal value in protecting privacy as a human right, saying it serves as basis for the enjoyment of the most basic of personal and political freedoms, such as the freedom of thought, association, speech and expression. This, Liboro explained, makes the role of government information security managers. In the same conference, Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima of the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) called on all government officers to be conscious of protecting the data privacy of members of the public. Salalima noted that doing so is an extension of their sworn duty as public servants. He said the right to privacy is among the “freedoms dearest to our hearts.”
“It is necessary and timely that we talk about the right to privacy given the seeming conflict at times between this right to privacy and the right to the digital freedom of expression,” Salalima said. “[T]here is a need for us to discuss privacy and the need to balance this right [vis-à-vis] the needs of national security, which, in turn, are meant to protect us Filipinos.” According to Salalima, the protection of private personal data is a legal obligation.
“But for public officers like you and me, it has to be more than that,” he said. “As public servants, we have to embrace it as a public duty, as a public trust.”