A further 14 charges of a similar nature were taken into consideration for his sentencing. (Representative)
Singapore:
A 35-year-old Indian-origin officer at Singapore’s Labor Ministry was sentenced to five weeks in prison on Thursday for asking a former colleague at DBS Bank to access his colleagues’ salary information, according to a media report.
Dinath Silvamany Muthaliyar, a Singapore citizen who asked his former colleague Liong Yan Sin of DBS Bank to access the profiles in the database containing information about customers, pleaded guilty to four counts under the Computer Misuse Act, Channel News reported Asia.
Liong had access to the details because of his work as a debt collector, where he dealt with inquiries from bank customers and spoke to them about outstanding payments and payment plans.
However, Liong was not permitted to disclose or access information outside of his duties.
Dinath was also a debt collector before joining the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), where he served as tax administration manager.
In June 2018, Dinath asked Liong to help him find out colleagues’ salaries at MOM so he could compare them with his own.
“The defendant wanted to know the salaries of his colleagues in order to determine his status in relation to his salary and the difference between his salary and the salaries of his colleagues,” the prosecutor explained.
Liong agreed and accessed the DBS database to conduct searches between June 2018 and November 2018.
He then passed on the information to Dinath via WhatsApp. At least seven colleagues were affected by all the charges.
The prosecution requested a prison sentence of six to seven weeks for Dinath, arguing that the defendant’s guilt was less than that of Liong because he was in a position of trust when the crime was committed.
Dinath pleaded guilty to four counts under the Computer Misuse Act for assisting Liong in carrying out the unauthorized searches and four counts under the Banking Act for assisting Liong in disclosing information he was ordered to disclose was not authorized.
An additional 14 charges of a similar nature were considered for his sentencing, the report said.
The court heard that both Liong and Dinath were aware of rules prohibiting debt collectors from disclosing customer information to third parties in an unauthorized manner and were not permitted to access customer information outside of their duties.
Liong had previously pleaded guilty to similar charges and was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison. Another man, Ang Kok How, who also asked Liong to illegally obtain an acquaintance’s address, was sentenced to two weeks in prison.
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Source : www.ndtv.com