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Customer Relationship Management

Notes A number of European countries have specific enactments dealing with the use of surveillance
for security and private investigation purpose and the review of information obtained. Private
investigators have to be licensed in many countries. In Ireland, it is necessary that physical and
electronic surveillance measures must comply with data protection laws.
Given that private detective agencies, if allowed to operate without regulation, could potentially
wreak considerable havoc on the personal information of a citizen, it is important to ensure that
these agencies are regulated particularly when it comes to the use of personal information. The
introduction of data protection legislation could have significant consequences on this industry.

Data Protection and National Security

There is likely conflict between privacy needs of an individual and interests of national security.
On many occasions, Government may need to resort to gaining access to personal information
and its sharing with other government agencies in order to safeguard national interests. Privacy
legislation will need to provide for such exceptions.

12.1.11 Data Protection vs. Transparency in Government

In recent times, the government has, in order to demonstrate greater transparency in its
functioning and reduce corruption, initiated the practice of publishing complete details of all
the government activities with full information about the recipients of government service.
While these initiatives do go a long way to validate the fact that government servants have
honestly and without fraud or corruption, delivered the services they are obliged to provide,
they have the unintended consequence of exposing vast quantities of personal data in a very
public way. With the introduction of the UID number this practice could result in even greater
harm as the UID number that will be present in each and every publication of this nature will
make it easy to link various public databases and help create an identifiable profile of everyone
on that public database.
The government needs to balance the need for transparency with the social obligation to provide
its citizens with personal privacy and data protection. There are other ways in which transparency
could be demonstrated – ways that do not impinge upon personal privacy. In enacting data
protection legislation, the government should be making a policy decision that it supports
personal privacy and if this means re-thinking its approach to transparency, must be willing to
take appropriate measures to change its own thinking.
12.1.12 Privacy Legislations in other Countries

Many countries in Europe, Asia and America have enacted privacy legislations. A summary of
the key provisions of legislations of major countries is annexed. A perusal of the summary
would suggest that approach to protection of privacy and individual liberty adopted by the
various countries have many common features. It is possible to identify certain basic values
which are commonly considered to be elementary components of the area of protection. Some
of these principles are setting limits of the collection of personal data in accordance with the
objectives of the data collector and similar criteria; restructuring the usage of data to conform
with specific purposes, granting facilities for individuals to know all the exceptions and constraints
of data and have their data collected; and the identification of parties who are responsible for
compliance with the relevant privacy protection of rules and decisions.

Differences between approaches of various countries referred to aspects such as the scope of
legislation, the emphasis placed different elements of protection, exceptions provided in the
law, and the machinery of enforcement. While most of the European legislations have opted for

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