They have introduced a new policy that restricts the amount of data that can be harvested by gambling operators from their customers and visitors. They will not be able to access complete customer personal data or sensitive details about their gaming activities and operations.
According to a report by Macau News Agency, all casinos, gaming operators, and junkets will have to comply with the latest rules imposed by the regulator. These rules aim to prevent any data from being shared with outside entities, regardless of their actual geographical position.
The DICJ states that the data related to gamblers, their activities, and their casino operations are off-limits. This includes personal data about the visitors such as their place of origin, their nationality, their profession, their gambling activity, their representatives and their accompanying persons.
Moreover, “off-limits” is also additional information about gamblers such as their entry time and exit time in casinos or particular gaming tables, amounts they place as bets, their credits, their payment prizes, their slot machine tickets, and how they purchase and redeem chips.
It’s Not Like GDPR
Although the regulators in Macau were inspired by the GDPR, they did not make it all so strict. In fact, casinos can share the data they harvested; after all, they only need to get permission from the DICJ.
The DICJ would approve if they feel that everything is in accordance with the Macau Personal Data Protection Act. According to DICJ, every individual request submitted by the operators must be reviewed first, and then decided whether it should be allowed or not.
Macau’s regulators already made a framework for imposing new regulations, and that framework is pretty similar to the GDPR. They named it the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) and plan to make it official soon.
The entire act was planned and made long ago, but the regulators were not sure about the best time to publish it. They wanted to make sure that all companies had an in-depth understanding of how the industry would be governed once the act becomes official.
One of the people that put special effort into making the PDPA is Paulo Martins Chan, who is the Director of the DICJ. He is doing his best to make sure that all gaming operators in Macau act in a manner that’s both ethical and legal.
His effort was definitely not in vain. As a matter of fact, Chan received a reward for the Regulator of the Year Asia/Australasia for 2019, which was awarded by the International Masters of Gaming Law.
