Are people protected by PDPA?

SHAH ALAM - An individual’s personal details could just be obtained just at the tip of a finger.

By just searching a person's identification number online, all the details of the individual would come out, said crime prevention specialist Dr Shamir Rajadurai.

“Just search the identification number online, it will come out. You don’t need any hacking.

“This will be a form of information on the government website or on the government-linked website since Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) does not apply to government websites,” he said.

Shamir was speaking as a panellist on Sinar Daily’s Wacana English Edition programme entitled “Scammer Alert, Don’t Fall for It” which was aired on all Sinar Daily and Sinar Harian’s digital platforms, last night.

He said examples of information that could be leaked were credit card and passport details (related to airlines), among others.

However, he said despite all this leaked information, it was difficult to take action as it was not covered under the PDPA.

“It only covers criminal action. Unless, if you can prove that because of that leak particularly, you became a victim and lost RM200,000.

“Which will be impossible for you to prove, but only then (with proof) you can take action against them,” he said.

For the past six years, only 20 companies were fined due to data breach which only cost them a RM25,000 fine.

By the end of 2020, it was reported that almost 15 million user informations were leaked from Malaysian organisations.

Among the companies that were affected by the data leakage were Maybank, Astro, the Election Commision and many more.