KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 23 (Bernama) -- The Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA), an international association of business and commercial lawyers and IPPJ Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Johor Corporation, will jointly organized an International Conference on "Privacy, Data Protection & Corporate Governance In The Internet Economy" to be held on Oct 9, 2003 at JW Marriot in Kuala Lumpur.

Jurisdictional council member (Malaysia Chapter) of (IPBA), Raman Saad said the conference that was endorsed by the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim, would analyze the underlying rationale behind privacy and data protection policy issues in impending Privacy & Data Protection Bill.

"That issue of the bill has come out two years ago and initially will be tabled in the Malaysian Parliament beginning of next year," he said at a press conference here Tuesday.

Raman Saad said that Malaysian citizens particularly consumers would stand to benefit from this protection.

Talking to reporters later, he said that the target participants to this conference would be lawyers, regulators and government official, company directors, finance treasurers, head of corporate finance, head of investment, assets, and fund consultants, and financial controllers.

He added that personal data protection would emerge as a major business preoccupation that would affect the way organization deal with personal data belonging to consumers and the citizen in general.

Raman said government departments, companies, private enterprises, universities & colleges and organization that hold numerous personal data, should prepare for this changes in future.

"The Internet environment has posed and is continuing to pose new threats to personal data protection and easy for the personal data of citizen to be indiscriminately harvested by using internet technologies to exploit for commercial gain or worse for illegal use," he said.

"As Malaysia moves into knowledge economy, which is driven by Information Communication Technology (ICT) technologies and innovation, there is a need for greater public awareness on the privacy and personal data protection.

Raman said that this would be the first major international conference to be held in Malaysia that seeks to address privacy and data protection issues against the increasing need for corporate accountability, transparency and good corporate governance practices.

So far 120 participants including Indonesis, India and Singapore have confirmed participation.