KINGSTON, Jamaica – Companies will be given time to comply with the full requirements of the Data Protection Act (DPA) beyond the start of the registration process on December 1.

This assurance was given by the Minister without Portfolio in the office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Skills and Digital Transformation, Senator, Dr Dana Morris Dixon, who said based on feedback from the public and private sectors, consideration will be given to doing this on a phased basis.

“The plan is for December 1 to start the registration process and, over time, we will give companies some time to comply,” she said.

Dr Morris Dixon was addressing the post-Cabinet press briefing on October 25 at Jamaica House.

Information Commissioner, Celia Barclay, said the office is doing its due diligence to establish the framework to ensure a resilient and robust system.

“In our legislation, we have opted to register data controllers… . We have taken the approach as a first step to be able to identify controllers. This is not something that every jurisdiction has sought to do. There are some jurisdictions that have sought to be more responsive in terms of dealing with complaints that come to them,” she said.

Barclay said the aim is to identify the controllers, identify their data-processing activities and use that information as a foundation base on which we are able to monitor and investigate issues concerning data protection.

“That is an approach that will give us an advantage in terms of implementing the legislation,” she explained.

This approach, she said, requires meticulous building out of essential support systems.

“It is not without its challenges, because it means that we have a lot more to do than other jurisdictions have in terms of setting up, so we have to build out our system for registration; we have to build out our office in a slightly different way from others. We have been doing that with the support of various partners within the public [and private sectors],” the information commissioner noted.

“Even as we sought to pass the data-protection legislation, we have been very ambitious. We have looked at what obtained elsewhere and sought to take the best of what we saw and take the best home for our people,” Barclay said.

– JIS