With a new wave of privacy legislations coming into force or are being updated in the biggest Asia economies, policymakers, and regulators alike throughout the region are off to a running start in 2022. China’s Personal Information Protection Law came into force in November 2021, while Japan’s amended Personal Information Protection Act will take effect on April 1, 2022. India and Korea, meanwhile, have issued legislative drafts on new or amended privacy legislations. Thailand, the second biggest economy in ASEAN, is also getting into the act: the long-awaited, GDPR-model Personal Data Protection Act, twice delayed due to the pandemic, is slated to enter into force on June 1.
While these developments are positive, policymakers should now turn their attention to new technology and business trends which have already arrived, or which are expected to hit main street in 2022. The sophistications of these technologies – AI, the metaverse, Web3, digital marketing – will further test the existing or updated legal frameworks, be it privacy, IP, antitrust, or digital assets. Web3, for example, will test the data subject rights of correction and deletion since Web3 essentially runs on blockchain, which by design is immutable, i.e., it cannot be deleted nor amended. A virtual community in the metaverse will be operated by different independent entities, likely consisting of platform, content, social media, and advertising providers. These complicated and competitive interactions will surely test how the data subject right of portability will be enforced, or whether data exchanges between the competitors will give rise to antitrust concerns.
Perhaps a good starting point for Asia’s policymakers is to monitor the policy developments in Europe. The next wave of legislations being developed in Brussels are both broad and deep, including e-Privacy Regulation, Data Governance Act, Data Act, AI Act, Digital Services Act, and Digital Marketing Act, among others. These new wave legislations are happening all the while robust GDPR enforcement actions across the EU are being carried out. To this end, regulators are broadening their GDPR enforcement focus from data breaches to legal bases for collecting and processing of data, to sharing of data with third parties, and to reining in digital marketing.
Not surprisingly, South Korea, long known as the fastest adopter of new technology trends, is an early responder to this new tech trend. Its lawmakers in January 2022 announced that there are plans to introduce new legislations relating to the metaverse.
Will we see other policymakers in Asia follow suit in 2022?
Indonesia’s Domestic Component Level (Tingkat Komponen Dalam Negeri or TKDN) policy has long been a pillar of the country’s industrial strategy, which aims to stimulate local production, reduce reliance on imports, and safeguard national interests in strategic sectors. However, in 2025, under the administration of President Prabowo Subianto, the TKDN framework is undergoing substantial reform. […]
Over the years, Malaysia has been making strides in promoting an open data ecosystem for the benefit of both the public and private sectors. Recognising that there are significant synergies that all parties can harness from publishing relevant data sets, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) launched the OpenDOSM platform in 2023, publishing 645 public […]
Today’s young people are increasingly growing up as digital natives, seamlessly using the internet for connection, learning, and self-expression. Yet, being on the internet also introduces them to significant and often unseen risks, particularly in the context of child exploitation. As technology advances at an accelerated pace, societies across the globe are grappling with how […]
jQuery(function(jQuery){jQuery.datepicker.setDefaults({"closeText":"Close","currentText":"Today","monthNames":["January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","October","November","December"],"monthNamesShort":["Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"],"nextText":"Next","prevText":"Previous","dayNames":["Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday"],"dayNamesShort":["Sun","Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat"],"dayNamesMin":["S","M","T","W","T","F","S"],"dateFormat":"d MM, yy","firstDay":1,"isRTL":false});});
var gform_i18n = {"datepicker":{"days":{"monday":"Mo","tuesday":"Tu","wednesday":"We","thursday":"Th","friday":"Fr","saturday":"Sa","sunday":"Su"},"months":{"january":"January","february":"February","march":"March","april":"April","may":"May","june":"June","july":"July","august":"August","september":"September","october":"October","november":"November","december":"December"},"firstDay":1,"iconText":"Select date"}};
var gf_legacy_multi = [];
var gform_gravityforms = {"strings":{"invalid_file_extension":"This type of file is not allowed. Must be one of the following:","delete_file":"Delete this file","in_progress":"in progress","file_exceeds_limit":"File exceeds size limit","illegal_extension":"This type of file is not allowed.","max_reached":"Maximum number of files reached","unknown_error":"There was a problem while saving the file on the server","currently_uploading":"Please wait for the uploading to complete","cancel":"Cancel","cancel_upload":"Cancel this upload","cancelled":"Cancelled"},"vars":{"images_url":"https:\/\/ps-engage.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/gravityforms\/images"}};
var gf_global = {"gf_currency_config":{"name":"U.S. Dollar","symbol_left":"$","symbol_right":"","symbol_padding":"","thousand_separator":",","decimal_separator":".","decimals":2,"code":"USD"},"base_url":"https:\/\/ps-engage.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/gravityforms","number_formats":[],"spinnerUrl":"https:\/\/ps-engage.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/gravityforms\/images\/spinner.svg","version_hash":"c8e6739cc393d67db1a2db79d11eb8af","strings":{"newRowAdded":"New row added.","rowRemoved":"Row removed","formSaved":"The form has been saved. The content contains the link to return and complete the form."}};
var gform_theme_config = {"common":{"form":{"honeypot":{"version_hash":"c8e6739cc393d67db1a2db79d11eb8af"}}},"hmr_dev":"","public_path":"https:\/\/ps-engage.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/gravityforms\/assets\/js\/dist\/"};
