Customers reported feeling harassed for missing money
A former employee of telecommunications company StarHub was sentenced on Monday to 10 weeks in jail after illegally handing out customers' information to a friend outside the organisation.
The 39-year-old suspect illegally accessed the company's database to obtain addresses and other information for his friend. He was asked to get some of the customers' details because those people owed his friend money from previous drinking and gambling sessions.
The suspect, who was charge of checking contract eligibility and installation appointment, complied and accessed the company's portals to retrieve needed information. The customers then reported suffering from harassment in the forms of calls and text messages. They also said people came to their houses demanding the money they reportedly owed, Channel News Asia reported.
The accused pled guilty to three charges under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. During the hearing, his lawyer said the suspect regrets his actions and only believed he was helping his friend.
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Deputy Public Prosecutor Magdalene Huang, however, said there was clearly a breach of trust in the incident which resulted to some of StarHub's subscribers getting harassed.
This is the second sentencing related to suspect’s friend, after a Singtel employee was jailed for 18 weeks back in January after selling the company’s customer information to the same person, who is already serving a jail time lasting four years and seven months after he dragged a police officer while attempting to escape in his Maserati.
Charges related to his connection to the separate incidents of customer information breach will be set for a pre-trial conference in October.
