According to senator Ernie Reyes of InterAksyon, the hottest issues right now are hacking and spying

on individuals, governments, and on industrial secrets.

We all know that privacy is a fundamental human right, but this is one people may, will and have been
using against each other for years.
Naturally, the government indeed implement certain laws to address these issues, we have the republic act
10173, also known as data privacy act of 2012, and the very famous, cyber crime law.
For a brief overview, the data privacy act was enacted in law last August 15, 2012
AN ACT PROTECTING INDIVIDUAL PERSONAL INFORMATION IN INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS IN THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR,
CREATING FOR THIS PURPOSE A NATIONAL PRIVACY COMMISSION, AND FOR OTHER
PURPOSES
Im sure were all informed about the cybercrime, or the republic act of 10175, which
began on July 25, 2011.
Despite these laws, identity theft and privacy invasion still hasnt ended in the
Philippines, and occurrence of these are becoming more and more frequent, and
offensive, especially in business and professional areas. For example, these are few of
the many banks that were hacked by anonymous people or groups even after the
implementation of the aforementioned laws:
1.

Central bank of the Philippines

2.

www.megalink.com.ph/index1.html
www.planbank.org
3.
www.bancofilipino.com.ph/index2.html
4.
www.ccitdatabank.com
5.
www.rbtbank.com/index1.html

In response to this issue, this house believes that the government should do more and extend beyond the
scopes of these laws to protect the privacy of information of both public and private business and
professional sectors.
But first let me clarify some terms:
1) INFORMATION is defined by any kid of material that may be used to ascertain the identity of
the data subject. Processing of this information includes all acts of creating, collecting,
organizing, editing or modifying, erasing, transferring, receiving and destroying of written,
printed, or digitally recorded information.

2) Public and private business sectors include all Philippine business companies and financial
institutions, whether based in the Philippines or in foreign countries.
3) Professional sectors include all organizational or service establishments, whether based in the
Philippines or not, such as hospitals, schools, and other service departments.
Now that I have clarified these, let me present my arguments:
1) First of all, according to chapter one section 4 of rep act 10173, the law does not apply to the
classification, the salary range and responsibilities of the individual employee.
Now, practically speaking, the most targeted individuals in todays industry crimes are those
whole salaries are high enough to risk the life of a person for ransom. How would we avoid that if
we are to display the salary range of employees?
2) Second, there are several group of hackers in the Philippines which are allegedly lead by
Filipinos, two of which are the Hitman and Anonymus Philippines. Both are known for
hacking into corporate, government and school websites that seek protesters against the
cybercrime prevention law. While this issue should be seen from a larger scope, simplifying it
will allow us to easily point out how weak the laws are.
How many people have done even the smallest of acts that violate the cybercrime law? Such as
libeling against your professor? Or couples sharing passwords with each other? Or irresponsibly
leaving your account on in an internet shop which results to other people hacking it? Now, from
these cases, how many have been addressed?
Same thing goes for the larger scale. Until now, the two hack groups are still on the move,
surprising people with black screens whenever you open unfortunate business or corporate
websites.
3) Thirdly, according to Gwen dela Cruz of rappler, DOST and DOH took actions to improve the
access of health information in for patients. This act itself nullifies patients right to
confidentiality. A patients record must be kept closed and secures as much as possible, and if not,
such consequences may happen:
A) The information may be used against the patient
B) The information may be used by another person for his own benefit.
C) The information may be misused.
You should know that most hospitals, not only in the Philippines, do not use encryption when
transferring records to electronic storages, and these storages are mostly just cloud storages,
accessed through open wifis. Now to prevent crime, we have to think like a criminal, which they
have obviously failed to do. One of their reasons for not requiring encryption is that it would be a
financial burden. (http://martineehrenclou.com/2014/08/patients%E2%80%99-medical-recordshacked-at-alarming-rate-tips-to-protect-yourself/) If this is true, the government should at least
provide funds for encrypting process of medical records.
http://www.gov.ph/2012/09/12/republic-act-no-10175/
http://www.rappler.com/nation/212-health/64507-doh-dost-health-information-exchange

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9579/
http://www.gov.ph/2012/08/15/republic-act-no-10173/