SG woman who allegedly disclosed info of over 1,100 bank customers to scammers to be charged

The woman had allegedly accessed and conducted queries on the bank’s electronic customer database without authorisation and accessed more than 3,300 customers’ information between April 6 and 22. — Unsplash

SINGAPORE: A woman who fell for a China police impersonation scam and allegedly disclosed the information of more than 1,100 bank customers will be charged in court on Friday (Aug 20).

The 26-year-old, who was working at the bank, had allegedly accessed and conducted queries on the bank’s electronic customer database without authorisation and accessed more than 3,300 customers’ information between April 6 and 22.

She had also allegedly disclosed over 1,100 customers’ information to a person claiming to be representing the “Shanghai Police”, investigations by the Commercial Affairs Department had found, said the police in a statement on Thursday.

On May 7, The Straits Times had reported that a UOB employee divulged personal information such as customer names, identification, mobile numbers and account balances of 1,166 of the bank’s customers to scammers impersonating as police officers from China.

Under the Computer Misuse Act, any person who committed the offence of unauthorised access to computer material can be fined up to S$5,000 (RM15,541), imprisonment for up to two years, or both.

Under the Banking Act, a person who is convicted of an offence of unauthorised disclosure of customer information may be fined up to S$125,000 (RM388,536), imprisoned for up to three years, or both.

The police advised members of the public to ignore unsolicited calls.

They added that no local government agency will demand payment through an undocumented medium such as a telephone call or other social messaging platforms, demand a person to surrender cash to unnamed persons, or ask for personal banking information such as Internet banking passwords.

They also said in the statement that if foreign residents receive calls from people claiming to be police officers or government officials from their home country, they should call their embassy or high commission to verify the claims of the callers. – The Straits Times (Singapore)/Asia News Network