Less than 30% of Hong Kong organisations have AI guidelines for staff: watchdog
Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung also says further amendments to Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance being considered to curb information leakage risks
Less than 30 per cent of organisations in Hong Kong have established guidelines for employees using artificial intelligence (AI), the city’s privacy commissioner has said, urging companies to avoid inputting sensitive data into such tools as much as possible.
Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung Lai-ling said on Sunday that further amendments to the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance were needed to reduce the risk of data leakage, after her office released guidelines aimed at helping companies regulate AI use among staff.
She said the use of generative AI tools in the workplace was becoming increasingly prevalent.
But Chung noted that while 68 per cent of organisations were aware of the associated privacy risks, only 55 per cent had developed an AI policy or were planning to create one.
“The number that have actually formulated one is less than 30 per cent,” she told a radio programme.
Chung said small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could lack the resources to develop internal AI usage policies.
She also called on organisations to minimise the inclusion of personal data in AI inputs. A retail fashion design company, for example, could include information related to orders, such as sizes and style, to conduct a preference analysis, without inputting customer names, she said.