Asia Pacific countries have made massive strides to improve their  data protection regime with Singapore particularly repositioning itself as a leading data hub in the region, according to research by law firm Taylor Wessing.
The firm analysed how countries globally were reacting to data protection and found the greatest shift in the Asia Pacific region. Singapore’s companies have until 2 July 2014 to make their data processes compliance with the country’s recently enacted data protection law.

New legislation

Meanwhile Australia has also enhanced its data protection legislative framework in recent years, according to Taylor Wessing.  It has enacted a Privacy Amerndment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 which is set to come into effect in March 2014. This will extend the regime around the collection, use, disclosure and transfer of personal data whilst also introducing a new definition of personal data more aligned with European data protection law.
India, however, has no specific data protection law and a Data Protection Bill in 2006 has made little progress, according to the research.