Former MOM officer gets jail for illegally obtaining co-workers' salary details through ex-colleague from DBS
He wanted to compare his own salary with his colleagues' to see where he stood.
The State Courts in Singapore. (File photo: CNA/Calvin Oh)
SINGAPORE: A former Ministry of Manpower (MOM) officer who had asked an ex-colleague from DBS Bank to access the salary information of MOM colleagues was jailed for five weeks on Thursday (Sep 14).
Dinath Silvamany Muthaliyar, a Singaporean, had asked his former colleague Liong Yan Sin to access the profiles in a DBS database which contained information about customers.
Liong had access to the details due to his job as a collections officer, where he attended to queries by bank customers, and spoke to them about outstanding payments and payment plans. However Liong was not supposed to disclose or access information outside of the parameters of his duties.
Dinath, too, was a collections officer before joining MOM, where he was a levy administration manager.
The ministry confirmed with CNA on Thursday night that Dinath was no longer in its employment.
The 35-year-old pleaded guilty to four counts under the Computer Misuse Act for abetting Liong to conduct the unauthorised searches and four counts under the Banking Act for abetting Liong to disclose information that he was not authorised to. Another 14 charges of a similar nature were considered for his sentencing.
Liong had earlier pleaded guilty to similar charges and was sentenced to 16 weeks' jail. Another man, Ang Kok How, who had also asked Liong to illegally obtain an acquaintance's address, was sentenced to two weeks jail.
The court heard that both Liong and Dinath had been aware of the rules prohibiting collections officers from disclosing customer information to third parties in an unauthorised manner, and that they were not allowed to access customer information outside of their job scope.
From June 2018, however, Dinath asked Liong to help him find out the salary details of then-colleagues at MOM so that he could compare them with his own.
"The accused wanted to find out his colleagues' salaries to ascertain his standing in respect of his salary and the difference between his salary and his colleagues' salaries," the prosecution said.
Liong agreed and accessed the DBS database to conduct searches between then and November 2018.
He then disclosed the information to Dinath via WhatsApp. Across all the charges, at least seven colleagues were affected.
The prosecution sought six to seven weeks' jail for Dinath, stating that the accused's culpability was lower than Liong, as Liong had been in a position of trust when he offended.
Dinath's lawyer, S S Dhillon, said his client had asked Liong to check the salaries of his colleagues "against his better judgement" and "purely out of curiosity".
Dinath did not provide the information to third parties and there were "no intended benefits", Mr Dhillon said.
"When he was called up for investigations, he was told that this was an offence, and he was himself taken aback. He did not know that just by asking for such details would tantamount to him serving a sentence," said Mr Dhillon.
At this point, Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan pointed out that Dinath had himself previously worked in DBS and should have known the consequences.
Mr Dhillon replied that even when Dinath worked in DBS, he had not known that simply asking for information would land him in jail.
The lawyer cited Dinath's clean record, plea of guilt, and cooperation with the authorities as mitigating factors.
He said that the possibility of Dinath losing his job was a "backyard punishment for his stupid, silly mistakes".
"You can see his demeanor sir, he speaks for himself. He is utterly shameful and very regretful, please give him this one chance in life."
In his mitigation plea, Mr Dhillon added that Dinath was "shell-shocked" from the proceedings.
"He is so worried and petrified that Dinath will never dare to be anything less than a law-abiding citizens henceforth. This fear has sent shivers down his spine, which in itself is a grave punishment for him."
In response to CNA's queries, MOM said it was informed of police investigations into Dinath in December 2018.
He was "immediately" redeployed to another role, pending the outcome of the investigations. His MOM contract was not renewed when it expired in June 2019, the ministry said.
