Pro: Philippine National ID Invades the Right to Privacy

by: Ethel Joi M Medoza

“The fantastic advances in the field of electronics communication constitute a

greater danger to the privacy of the individual. “ –Earl Warren

The Philippine land is dreaming to soar high like other country in Southeast

Asia and eventually in the worldwide. This is an excellent goal in mind for the Filipino

leaders and the government. In the recent years, Philippines’ economy has

strengthened and remains dynamic. The Philippines is ranked 13th among 43

countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is above the regional and

world averages (1).

The Philippine Legislative passed a new act which will demonstrate that this

country is gradually flapping its wings to fly in the level of other country. Republic Act

11055 otherwise known as “An Act Establishing the Philippine Identification System”

was signed into law by the President. For the proponents of this act, this will

contribute to the tactical method of the government to run with the same pace as the

other country, but for the other mind, this act is a gateway invades the right to

privacy. The act is intended to provide a valid proof of identity for all citizens and

resident aliens as means of simplifying public and private transactions (2). There will

be one National Id that will be presented to all agencies of the government for an

express transaction. Sounds high tech for those who are in favour of the law but for

others, it is alarming as technology such as computer, gadget and internet will be the

blood of this law, where in this innovated society, crimes with aid of technology is

vastly increasing. How one can secure privacy where in the total human information

computers are just around the corners?

 The Constitution protects the privacy of its citizen, thus laws that oppose the

supreme law shall be asserted as unconstitutional. According to Philippine 1987

Constitution, one of the fundamental policies of the State is to put premium on the

dignity of every person and guaranteeing full respect for the human rights. Under the

Article III of 1987 Constitution, Privacy is a fundamental human right, protected in

various international human rights instrument. It is paramount to the protection of

human dignity and shape the basis of any democratic society. It is clearly stated in

the provided article, Section 2, “ The right of the people to be secure in their persons,

houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever

nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable and no search warrant or warrant of

arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the

judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and of the

witness he may produce and particularly describing the place to be searched an the

persons or things to be seized. Moreover, Section 3, “The privacy of communication

and correspondence shall be inviolable except upon lawful order of the court, or

when public safety or order requires otherwise, as prescribed by law.” Indeed that

the right to privacy is a principal consideration by the Philippine Constitution in

protecting its citizen.

Under Section 15 of the Philippine ID System, the Philippine Statistics

Authority shall be the primary implementing agency to carry out provisions of the act

with the technical assistance of Department of Information and Communications

Technology. Under this section, DICT shall implement reasonable and appropriate

organizational, technical and physical security measures to ensure that the

information gathered for the PhilSys including information stored in the PhilSys

Registry is protected from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, and against

accidental or intentional loss, destruction or damage. The power of technology is

unpredictable. Availability of information in the internet attracts people to carry out

illegal actions and one of it is the invasion of privacy. It can be done in many ways

such as mass surveillance on the part of the government, identity theft and breach of

data that can enable one to hack and create fake account in social media, invade

bank account and makes debit through online.

Mass surveillance by its very nature, impacts on personal privacy. Sharing

surveillance intelligence with other government agency greatly intensifies the

interference with personal privacy. Government agencies in security and solving

crimes such NBI and PNP may intrude upon the private communications of innocent

citizens, amass vast databases of who we call and when, and catalog “suspicious

activities” based on the vaguest standards (5). Under the case of Disini v. The

Secretary of Justice, NBI and PNP were authorized to collect data transmitted by

means of a computer system. The Supreme Court ruled that the provision giving

authority to the law enforcement authorities threatens the Constitutional right to

privacy. It held that giving the power to track cyber space communication in real time

and determine their sources and destinations must be narrowly drawn to prevent

abuses. Imagine how will it be easy to the law enforcement authority abusing their

authority to gather information through data from computer system just to

desperately prove that their suspect executed a crime. Is not this will violate the

person right to due process as well?

Another alarming way to invade the privacy of a person through the use of

gathered, collected and stored data of the citizen is the breach of data and identity

theft. Breach of data is a security incident in which information is accessed without

authorization. Data breaches can hurt businesses and consumers in a variety of

ways. They are a costly expense that can damage lives and reputations and take

time to repair (6). Breach of data can lead to Identity theft which is a process of

stealing information, like name, address, social security number, email address

without the consent. Hackers will be invited to execute breach of data when all of the

citizens’ data is stored in one place and it will be a piece of cake to perform their

unlawful actions such as intercept tax refund, debiting bank accounts, creating fake

accounts in social media, use of data to avail medical fees paid by government, even

use your information to avail a free seat to your premium card in airlines or in hotels.

An incident involve a public school teacher posted his licensure exam in Facebook

finds himself owing three banks some 800 thousand which he discovered only after

receiving notifications from the banking institutions. Allegedly the victim experienced

identity theft (7). Another movie clip created by Cybersafe shows a young girl

befriended a boy from social media without the knowledge of the child, the account is

fake which used a young boy picture where in fact the creator of the fake account an

old man poisoning the innocence of the child.

There are several threats that the new law may offer if the government will not

make strict procedures to secure the gathered, collected and stored data of the

citizens. As a proponent that this law invades the right to privacy, I am much worried

of the readiness of the government in applying this law. The Philippine Law already

provided Data Privacy Act of 2012 but it seems that this law has not yet establish

concrete mechanism in place to monitor and protect data privacy.

________________________

1. 2018 Economic Index of Economic Freedom, https://www.heritage.org/index/country/philippines

2. Sec.3, par 1, Republic Act 11055, 2018
3. Article 3, Sec.2 &3, 1987 Constitution
4.Sec.15, par 1, Republic Act 11055, 2018
5. https://privacyinternational.org/topics/mass-surveillance
6. Authored by Employee of Smeantec, https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-privacy-data-breaches-what-
you-need-to-know.html
7. Authored by Trischa Macas, GMA Online News