Privacy Statement

The National Privacy Commission (NPC) is committed to fully protect your personal data privacy in compliance with Republic Act No. 10173, otherwise known as the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (DPA).

We shall detail the manner in which we process your personal data and provide a separate privacy notice in an appropriate format and manner whenever we collect personal data through other channels (e.g., publicly facing data processing systems implemented, notice posted at the reception area of NPC during events where participants' personal data is collected through attendance sheets or registration forms when personal data is collected according to the NPC's mandate).

In all instances, we assure you that processing your personal data will strictly follow the provisions of DPA, especially the general data privacy principles of Transparency, Legitimate Purpose, and Proportionality.

NPC Website Privacy Notice

Our official website www.privacy.gov.ph

This Privacy Notice is for the NPC's website. These functionalities enable the NPC to collect and process your personal information.

Personal Data Collected and Manner of Collection

We collect the following personal data from you when you manually or electronically submit to us your inquiries or requests:

  • Name
  • Email Address

AskPRIVA Page

This form is used by the data subject to submit inquiries and concerns to NPC.

Basis, Use, and Purpose for Processing of Personal Data

While your consent may be solicited to process your personal data, we may also process personal data without your consent, such as when processing is according to our mandate or when processing is allowed under Section 12 or Section 13 of the DPA.

In these instances, your personal data is utilized for the following purposes:

  • For documentation and processing of inquiries and requests within the NPC, enable the NPC to properly address them and forward them to the appropriate internal units for action and response.
  • To solicit feedback for the services we provide.
  • To provide you with the appropriate updates and advisories in an appropriate format and orderly and timely manner.
  • To comply with a legal obligation to which the NPC is subject.
  • To comply with the requirements of public order and safety or to fulfill the functions of public authority, including processing personal data to fulfill NPC's mandate.
  • To be able to provide the appropriate action that a data subject may require concerning their data privacy rights.

Moreover, we may collect other personal data that are relevant and necessary to perform our mandate of providing compliance support and data subject assistance.

Methods utilized for automated access

The NPC uses WordPress Statistics, a third-party service, to analyze our web traffic data, help us determine our website's engagement, and improve our website services and features. This service uses cookies. Data generated is not shared with any other party.

The following web traffic data are processed for this purpose:

  • Your IP address
  • The pages and internal links accessed on our site
  • The date and time you visited the site
  • Geolocation
  • The referring site or platform (if any) through which you accessed this site
  • Your operating system
  • Web browser type

Disclosure of Personal Data

Personal data processed by the NPC is not shared with any other party unless such disclosure is allowed under Section 12 or 13 of the DPA.

Risks Involved

Risk refers to the potential of an incident to result in harm or danger to a data subject or organization. Risks may lead to the unauthorized collection, use, disclosure, or access to personal data. It includes risks involving the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of personal data or the risk that processing will violate the general data privacy principles and the rights of data subjects.

The NPC ensures that adequate physical, technical, and organizational security measures are in place to protect personal information's confidentiality, integrity, and availability. However, this does not guarantee absolute protection against certain risks involving the processing of personal data, such as when systems are exposed to targeted cyberattacks, malware, ransomware, and computer viruses or when manual records are accessed without authority.

However, adequate policies are in place to ensure appropriate security incident management in line with existing NPC policies, circulars, and other issuances.

Data Protection and Security Measures

We safeguard the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your personal information by maintaining a combination of organizational, physical, and technical security measures based on generally accepted data privacy and information security standards. Among the measures we implement are the following:

  • Policies on access control in both digital and physical infrastructures to prevent unauthorized access to personal information.
  • Acceptable use policies
  • End-to-end encryption and data classification whenever suitable.
  • Security measures against natural disasters, power disturbances, external access, and similar threats.
  • Technical measures to protect our computers and databases against accidental, unlawful, or unauthorized usage, interference, or access.

Storage and Retention

We store files containing personal information in our computers and servers, which are kept in a secure environment. We may also store your personal information with cloud-based third-party data storage providers. We shall ensure that proper measures are adopted to protect your information.

Personal data shall be stored in a database for two (2) years after inquiries and requests are
acted upon. After which, records shall be disposed of securely.

Other categories of data may be kept longer than two (2) years when its retention period is determined by other relevant laws and regulations.

Disposal

Physical records shall be disposed of through shredding, while digital files shall be anonymized. In all instances, our manner of disposal shall ensure that the personal information shall no longer be retrieved, processed, or accessed by unauthorized persons.

Rights of a Data Subject

Under the DPA, you have the right to be informed regarding processing the personal information we hold about you.

Further, you may be entitled to request:

  1. Access to personal data we process about you. It is your right to obtain confirmation on whether or not data relating to you are being processed;
  2. Rectification of your personal data. This is your right to have your personal data corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
  3. Erasure or order blocking of your personal data whenever warranted;
  4. The right to object if the personal data processing involved is based on consent or on legitimate interest;
  5. The right to data portability through which you may obtain and electronically move, copy, or transfer your data securely for further use.

You may claim compensation if you believe you suffered damages due to inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, false, unlawfully obtained, or unauthorized use of personal data or for violating your rights and freedoms as a data subject.

Suppose you think that your personal information has been misused, maliciously disclosed, or improperly disposed of or that your data privacy rights have been violated. In that case, you have a right to file a complaint with the NPC.

Changes to the Privacy Notice

NPC reserves the right to update or revise this privacy notice at any time and will provide a new privacy notice whenever there are substantial changes. Prior versions of the privacy notice shall be retained by the Commission and shall be provided to data subjects upon request.

Feedback on our Privacy Notice

Suppose you have suggestions or comments regarding our privacy statement and notice or for any issues concerning NPC's data privacy practices. In that case, you may reach us through our Data Protection Officer, Atty. Ivin Ronald D.M. Alzona, via this address: 5th Floor Delegation Building, PICC Complex, Vicente Sotto Avenue, Pasay City, Metro Manila 1307, or email us at [email protected].

Date last updated: 18 May 2023