SINGAPORE: Just one month into his new job, an assistant vice-president at OCBC began abusing the access his job gave him and started looking through the account balances and other details of bank customers, including Singaporean politicians, influencers, his colleagues, friends and family members.
Au Jia Hao, who also goes by Ou Jiahao, 39, was jailed for 10 weeks on Jan 3, after he pleaded guilty to one charge of unauthorised access to computer material.
Au illegally accessed the banking details of 369 OCBC customers over a period of eight months from Nov 8, 2022, to July 31, 2023.
The court heard he was employed as an assistant vice-president of OCBC’s Global Commercial Banking Division on Oct 12, 2022, and was given access to OCBC’s banking system as part of his job scope.
But he soon began to abuse his access by pulling up the names, NRIC numbers, dates of birth, addresses, contact numbers, account balances, and education and employment history of profiles he had no business looking at.
He did not disclose the information to any third party, and claimed to have illegally accessed the information out of curiosity and stress from work.
The identities of the politicians, influencers and other persons affected were not revealed in court.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Colin Ng said Au had tendered his resignation sometime in July 2023, but had continued his offending behaviour until the end of that month.
Au was only found out on Aug 16, 2023, after the risk and prevention department of OCBC flagged that he had accessed the information of a senior OCBC employee.
He was confronted by his superior who later lodged a police report against him.
Au was terminated on Sept 7, 2023.
His lawyer, Kalidass Murugaiyan, told the court his client was a father of two young children and suffered from depression and other mental health issues, and was remorseful.
In passing the sentence, District Judge Wong Peck said Au had abused his position as a bank employee and only stopped after there were internal checks by the bank.
The Straits Times has contacted OCBC for more information.
For unauthorised access to computer material, Au could have been jailed for up to two years and fined up to $5,000. - The Straits Times/ANN
