Singapore's Personal Data Protection legislation: Business perspectives

As global digitalisation of information and interconnecting technologies along with new marketing practices and business processes vastly increase the opportunities for data collection, storage, usage and delivery, there is a corresponding increase in consumer expectations of data privacy. These expectations must be met if business organisations are to promote consumer trust and confidence and maintain their overall competitiveness in a global market. It goes without saying that information is the most valuable business asset and “privacy is good business and information can be the basis of bigger business”. The need to protect data privacy has long been recognised and implemented by major trading nations. Surprisingly, Singapore as a financial centre and nation aspiring to be a trusted data hosting hub has been slow in enacting specific data protection laws. The first piece of legislation that has emerged is a light-touch baseline framework applicable to all organisations except the public sector. This article considers the new legislation from the business perspective and the implications for private sector business organisations facing the challenges of compliance.