Malaysia – an endemic surveillance country!

2006 International Privacy Survey

Privacy International (PI) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations. Recently, it issued the 2006 results of the ranking assessment of the state of privacy in the world. 

The aim of this survey was to find countries with nurtured privacy protection and respect for privacy. The survey does not want to humiliate the worst ranking countries but to show that good privacy environment is possible.

The best ranking countries are Germany and Canada with the healthiest privacy environment. The worst ranking countries of the survey are Malaysia and China. In EU, it is the United Kingdom.

Summary of key findings

Note:  “worst ranking” and “lowest ranking” denotes countries that exhibit poor privacy performance and high levels of surveillance.

 

The two worst ranking countries in the survey are Malaysia and China. The highest-ranking countries are Germany and Canada.

 

In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world.

 

In terms of the health of national privacy protection, the US has been ranked between Thailand and Israel.

 

The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore. The black category defines countries demonstrating “endemic surveillance”.

 

Despite having no comprehensive national privacy law, the United States scored higher than the UK. Thailand and the Philippines also scored higher than the UK.

Argentina scored higher than 20 of the 25 EU countries.

 

Australia ranks higher than Slovenia but lower than Lithuania and Argentina. New Zealand ranks higher than Australia and has an equivalent ranking to the Czech Republic.

 

A quick glance at the fact sheet shows that all is not that bad for Malaysia. Lets see:

 

1) Pak Lah, ahemmm, appears to provide better leadership than Bush or Blair!

2) Viola! We don’t believe in workplace monitoring unlike US or our snoopy southern neighbor, Singapore! Now; we cannot be advocating privacy and at the same time lament over the performance of our civil servants, can we?

 

Data Source: Privacy International