MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Pia Cayetano asked the National Privacy Commission (NPC) on Wednesday whether it could investigate the publication of her flight details after she and her brother, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, traveled to Singapore two weeks ago.
Cayetano raised the question during a Senate finance panel hearing on the proposed budget of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
She asked Privacy Commissioner and NPC Chairman Johann Barcena whether publishing details such as her flight number could violate her privacy when she traveled to Singapore to watch a Philippine national team event.
“If a public official would say attend a function not necessarily aligned with their line of work but it can be said to be public because it’s not hiding… For example, I traveled to watch a national team perform and then the flight number where I am, being announced, is that a violation of my privacy?” Cayetano asked.
Barcena said the matter could involve the processing of personal data and that the publisher would need a lawful basis for capturing and publishing an individual’s image, subject to journalistic exceptions.
Cayetano then asked whether the NPC could initiate an investigation into such cases.
“That could be subject of a complaint or if we capture it, for example on the news… we can do motu proprio sua sponte investigations,” Barcena said.
Barcena said public officials still retain a degree of privacy despite their positions.
“Even public officials do have a semblance of right to privacy,” he said.
He distinguished between information related to an official’s public functions and private aspects of their lives.
“With respect to only public functions, of course the public needs to have knowledge on that,” Barcena said.
He added that private aspects of a public official’s life, including information about their family, remain within areas of privacy.
Cayetano and Alan Peter Cayetano traveled to Singapore two weeks before the hearing. Pia Cayetano said she went to support a Philippine national team event.
The exchange came as the Senate considered the DICT budget and discussed issues involving data privacy and the handling of personal information.