Outsourcing in the Philippines: Is your privacy
protected?
By Roy Jonathan del Rosario
Does Philippines have laws which guard the
confidentiality of private information that is
held regarding a person in the course of private
conversations on the phone or on-line for
business or any legal purposes for instance, in
the outsourcing industry?
Most businessmen are being anxious whether or not
to avail call center services or more
specifically customer care services because at
stake is the confidentiality of their business
documents or whatever it is that needs privacy.
It is their lack of knowledge that there are
certain laws in the Philippine Constitution that
protect their rights for privacy which hinders them from making their other business processes
done by more skilled specialists outside their
company, which might make it more efficiently
done and added the advantage of cutting the
high-priced expenditures of the company when the
business processes were done in-house.
Among these laws that can give confidentiality
and safeguard of data to the businessmen incl
the Republic Act No. 8792 which is also known as
the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000. In this law,
it lawfully recognizes electronic credentials
and transactions, and defines what is legal for
commercial and non-commercial purposes. The law
states that: 1. Only persons with the lawful
right to the data should have the access to it
(Section31-Lawful Access); 2. People with the
lawful right to the data should keep it
confidential (Section32-Obligation of
Confidentiality); and 3. Illegal access to the
data is punishable by law (Section 33-Penalties).
Another law that is stated is the Presidential
Decree No. 1718 which puts restrictions on the
transfer of documents and information outside the Philippines.
On the other hand, the Philippine Constitution
and Civil Law states that the privacy, including
the privacy of data, is a constitutional right
and is recognized in the Philippine Civil Law.
Since bank documents are extremely confidential,
there is the law which is the Bank Secrecy Act of
1995 which sets out the rules for keeping bank
records confidential.
And since communicating over the phone or on any
forms of technology can be recorded, the
Republic Act No. 4200 also known as the
Anti-Wire Tapping Act, states that it is illegal
to intercept or record private communications.
Another important law which is known as the
Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998 states the
prohibition of the utilization of unauthorized
‘access devices’ which includes account numbers,
credit cards and electronic serial numbers.
