Multinational information exchange clarified

INFORMATION exchange between countries through trade is regulated under the domestic laws of each Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) nation, an official says.
Electronic Commerce Steering Group-Data Privacy subgroup chairman Colin Minihan told The National that the subgroup wanted to enhance greater privacy in the commercial setting.
“Apec’s purpose is to recognise that this works in a trade environment. And we also recognise that in that context, businesses have a real interest in protecting the information of their own consumers,” Minihan said.
“We do not deal with privacy in the government context so we are not actually telling governments how to deal with personal information but are actually discussing it in a commercial context.
“So it’s encouraging businesses in the region to protect personal information.
“We recognise that there is more than one way to do things.
“For example in Australia, there is a privacy law and privacy commissioner as does Hong Kong, China, Canada, New Zealand and Korea.
“But other economies do it differently such as the US which has a Federal Trade Commission in place and they use it as a consumer protection measure.
“There are different ways that it can be implemented.”
Minihan said the sub-group was dealing with e-commerce privacy through collaborating with businesses in developing a unified basis for Apec economies.
It is working with European Union to allow interoperability between the two regions and e-commerce.
“Apec is a regional body as is the European Union and there are two different approaches to privacy in those two regions,” he said.