Competitive Intelligence and Asian Business
Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA)
Starting from November 15, 2013, the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) has been
introduced and implemented in Malaysia. PDPA is a set of cross-sectoral frameworks to protect
individual’s data regarding commercial transactions. Under the Act, data users must comply
with seven personal data protection principles. Industries dealing with the consumer are
required to register with the Commissioner’s office according to the Personal Data Protection
Order 2013 (Healey, 2021).
By stating clearly that an organization is complying with standards for the collection and use of
personal data, this will reassure customers that their data and privacy are protected. This will
become an attraction to customers who previously hesitant and build customer trust which is
important in business retention. For example, telecommunication industries are prohibited from
sharing customer information with third parties. A telephone number may be used to register
in service without their consent, and eventually had to pay a large amount from its normal
monthly usage. The loss of trust, in turn, causes the customer to no longer make the company
an option and choose to switch to another supplier. However, the relationship between
compliance in PDPA and increased customer trust is subjective, requiring the involvement of
other factors and proof through in-depth research.
Following the PDPA principles may help organizations preventing cybercrimes by ensuring
data privacy and details information of customers are protected to prevent attempting fraud.
By complying with PDPA, the organization has taken the initiative to prevent such things from
happening. According to Bernama (2019), in the first quarter of 2019, 2,207 cases of
cybercrimes were reported with losses of nearly RM70 million involved. The most common
types of cybercrimes are related to victims’ telephone numbers and email, telephone scam
(773 cases with RM27 million losses), followed by online purchases scam (811 cases with
RM4.2 million losses) and ‘African Scam’ (371 cases with RM15 million losses). However, it is
unfair to believe that the presence of PDPA is enough in protecting society from cybercrime.
Continuous effort in creating public awareness on cybercrimes through public promotion
campaigns and education are required and need improvement from time to time.
Organizations may store too much data and do not know how to deal with it. PDPA allows an
organization to get rid of bad data thus improve their data management. Better data
management allows them to reallocate their resources for more productive tasks, turn data into
business value, and improve decision-making. Data that piled up either in a physical format or
electronic documents can be reclassified, revalue its level of importance, and organizations
now have an option to get rid of bad data to free up more space (Arsenault, 2016).
Reclassification of data may require human involvement, hours to complete, the process can
also be done using Artificial Technology (AI) and Machine Learning technology especially for
electronic data. The return of such hard work will be given an organization to act only on
important data to make business decisions, thus improve customer experience by discovering
their needs and better product offering. Nevertheless, PDPA gives consumers control over
their data. They have the right to request their data to be deleted or removed. PDPA gives both
parties, the consumer and organization an option on how to deal with it.
Organizations can leverage PDPA to reassure their customer's trust, preventing cybercrimes,
and get rid of bad data that fill up their storage. The process of implementing PDPA requires
continuous awareness and education actions on organizations as well as customers instead
of fines and strict enforcement.
References:
1
Competitive Intelligence and Asian Business
Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA)
Healey, R., (2021, Jan 6). The Malaysia Personal Data Protection Act 2010 – All you need to
know. Global Data Privacy, Malaysia PDPA. Retrieved from https://formiti.com/the-malaysia-
personal-data-protection-act-2010-all-you-need-to-know-part-1/
Bernama (2019, April 23). RM67.6 million lost to cybercrimes in Q1 2019. Crime & Courts
Section. New Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.nst.com.my/news/crime-
courts/2019/04/482208/rm676-million-lost-cyber-crimes-q1-2019
Arsenault, R., (2016, Aug 1). The Benefits of Utilizing Unstructured Data. Retrieved from
https://www.business2community.com/big-data/benefits-utilizing-unstructured-data-01615160
