Hong Kong’s PDPO section 33 cross-border restriction is not in force, so there is no statutory bar on transferring data abroad — but the PCPD recommends safeguards. What that means for AI.
dgm is an independent osFoundry integration partner — not affiliated with osFoundry’s maker (OS LLC), and dgm has no completed client integrations yet.
Sending data abroad for AI processing raises a cross-border question. In Hong Kong the answer is unusual: the PDPO’s cross-border restriction has never come into force.
The section 33 position
Section 33 of the PDPO, which would restrict transferring personal data outside Hong Kong, has never been brought into operation since 1996. So there is currently no statutory restriction on transferring personal data abroad — including for AI processing. The PCPD nonetheless publishes non-binding Recommended Model Contractual Clauses encouraging voluntary safeguards.
What this means for AI
You can, as a matter of Hong Kong law, send personal data to an overseas AI service — but the other DPPs still apply (security, purpose, consent), and the destination’s own laws (and the operator’s jurisdiction) matter. For sensitive data, many Hong Kong firms still choose to keep processing in-territory by policy.
A practical approach
Decide residency as a risk and procurement choice, not a legal mandate. osFoundry’s managed cloud pins data to the US, EU or Japan — it does not currently offer a Hong Kong managed region (its nearest managed region is Japan). To keep data in Hong Kong, the honest path is self-hosting osFoundry (BYO Cloud) inside a Hong Kong cloud region such as AWS Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) ap-east-1, Microsoft Azure East Asia (Hong Kong SAR) or Google Cloud asia-east2 (Hong Kong), or running models locally on-device. Where data should stay in Hong Kong, self-hosting or local-first is the route.
Where dgm fits
dgm is an independent integration partner that helps Hong Kong businesses adopt osFoundry — scoping a first use case, handling the build, and connecting AI to the systems you already run. dgm is independent of osFoundry’s maker (OS LLC) and has no completed client integrations yet, so everything described here is a service offered, not a past result. If you want to scope a practical first project, dgm can help you map it out.