Current Affairs
SDP celebrates National Day (part 2)
by: Benjamin Cheah/
On the 6th August, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) organised a dinner to celebrate National Day at the Gallery at Fort Canning. Dubbed the “Singapore Day Party”, its name was a play on the SDP acronym. This is part 2 of the report on their celebration.
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‘Things are starting to change in Singapore’
After dinner, Dr Paul Thambyah addressed the audience. During the General Elections, Dr Thambyah spoke about the state of healthcare in Singapore. He is currently a member of MARUAH, the working group for an ASEAN human rights organisation. Dr Thambyah said ‘many in authority’ are ‘trapped’ in a system that discourages people from ‘rock(ing) the boat’.
He mentioned journalists who privately support alternative views publicly ‘producing official spin’, and civil servants who ‘set aside their personal beliefs and convictions to toe the party line’ by ‘tweaking policies’ instead of addressing ‘the fundamental flaws which come from above’.
Dr Thambyah believed that the ‘fundamental flaws’ in Singapore’s system of government lies in ‘the corporatisation’ of Singapore. He cited how restructured hospitals ‘are expected to recover costs as far as possible’. He said that the authorities fear the ‘possibility of abuse when subsidies are provided liberally’, and pointed out that nobody deliberately falls ill to enjoy healthcare benefits.
He said that the possibility of abuse should not deter the government from providing free healthcare for children, equating healthcare to public goods like water, education, public transport and security. Dr Thambyah said that Singapore should be ‘less like Microsoft and more like Google’, in that the state should strive towards doing no evil and maximising the people’s welfare instead of maximising economic growth.
Dr Thambyah said that the ‘ultimate goal’ should be to evolve into a society in which every Singaporean matters. He said public monies should not be used to benefit ‘just a few high-flying scholars’ but instead every Singaporean. He praised the SDP’s economic plans, saying that the party wants to invest the national reserves in the people of Singapore to raise the standard of living for all. ‘It is now time for the government to trust the people’, he said. He added that ‘the ministers should recognise that they have their jobs’ because they were elected to their posts, and can be dismissed should they fail to meet the people’s expectations. He said that change is coming from the ground up, through the use of social media and political activists. He said that the Internet has ‘provided an unprecedented level of accountability’, ‘forcing’ ministers to justify their policies to the people ‘on their Facebook pages’.
But change must come from above too, he said. The highest office in the land, he said, should be for someone with ‘moral courage and leadership’ referring to Mr Tan Jee Say, or someone with ‘guts and an independent mind’, like Mr Tan Kin Lian. Dr Thambyah called Mr Tan Jee Say the ‘conscience of the nation’, and Mr Tan Kin Lian as an ‘independent voice who has the guts to speak up’. He said the SDP has ‘a clear stance on issues that matter’, such as how public monies should be spent. ‘One person who speaks up can be safely ignored’, Dr Thambyah said. ‘Ten thousand people speaking up cannot be ignored.’
Calling this the ‘new era in Singapore politics’, he said more and more citizens are questioning the authorities. He said that the people should not ‘sit down and shut up’. Their voices would be heard, and the people should start by choosing a ‘President who puts the people first’.
Auction – at the PAP’s expense
After Dr Thambyah’s speech, the MC’s conducted an auction to raise funds for the SDP. The first item was a ‘rare’ pink two-dollar note. Bidding started at one dollar, and was finally sold for one hundred dollars to Mr Tan Kin Lian. Other items included a lion head prop used in traditional Chinese lion dances, a picture of Dr Wijeysingha, a single Vanda Miss Joaquim in bloom, an autographed election poster, and a child-sized air stewardess unifor.
After the last item was sold, the display screen went blank. A short skit began. A man dressed in the old army field uniform strolled to the stage, followed by a petite woman carrying an army-issue backpack. This was a reference to reports of a soldier walking home with his maid lugging his backpack. The ‘soldier’ asked the ‘maid’ to open the bag and take out a special item for the auction; when she complained and dawdled, he told her to hurry up or she would not have the following day off. This scene referred to the campaign to encourage employers to give foreign domestic workers a day off.
The item turned out to be a National Day Parade fun pack. Soldier and maid marched on the spot, as excerpts from NCH Productions’ animated fun pack song from YouTube played on the screen (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQXDqjYnN5I). With the song and dance concluded, the fun pack was eventually sold for a hundred and twenty dollars.
The final item to be sold was a Kate Spade handbag. The sale was preceded by a screening of SINdie’s ‘Another Home’ video. Ms Tin Pei Ling’s lookalike from the video, Ms Mint Leong, posed with the handbag, imitating Ms Tin’s viral kawaii pose. The bag was eventually sold for two hundred and eighty-eight dollars.
Honouring Dr Lim Hock Siew
When the auction closed, the SDP held an award ceremony for Dr Lim Hock Siew. Dr Lim was arrested as part of Operation Coldstore under the Internal Security Act (“ISA”). Dr Chee felt that the honour was ‘a long time coming’ for a man of ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’ and ‘courage of his beliefs’. Dr Chee said that Dr Lim and his comrades ‘stood for a Singapore that used to care’, and Dr Lim is still ‘very passionate’.
There ‘must be some kind of truth and reconciliation’, Dr Chee said. He added that the honour of political detainees must be restored, and that he felt that the detainees’ stories should be told. In the future, the SDP aims to educate Singaporeans about the ISA and why a law that ‘gives the government carte blanche…cannot be good for any country’. Dr Chee said that ‘the ISA had its time already, if it ever was needed’. Should a law be needed to address terrorism, it should be a separate act, with built-in oversight and checks and balances.
Dr Wong Wee Nam spoke at length about his experiences with Dr Lim, referencing the article he wrote for TOC. Dr Wong then presented Dr Lim with a work of art, donated by an anonymous donor.
In Concluding
The award ceremony concluded with a presentation of awards to selected Marsiling residents. This was followed by a short skit, manned by members of the audience and directed by the MC. The evening came to a close with a sing-along session, covering ‘Count on me Singapore’, ‘Stand up for Singapore’, and ‘YMCA’.
Dr Chee said he hoped that younger Singaporeans could learn from the event, to understand that ‘not everything can be calculated in dollars and cents’, and that the pursuit of wealth must be tempered with compassion for fellow Singaporeans. Dr Chee said that if Singapore is going to be a ‘mature, thinking, intelligent, developed society’, Singapore needs to move away from equating the PAP with Singapore. The National Day celebration should be about the people, he said, not the government.
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Part 1 is HERE.
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Current Affairs
Man arrested for alleged housebreaking and theft of mobile phones in Yishun
A 23-year-old man was arrested for allegedly breaking into a Yishun Ring Road rental flat and stealing eight mobile phones worth S$3,400 from five tenants. The Singapore Police responded swiftly on 1 September, identifying and apprehending the suspect on the same day. The man has been charged with housebreaking, which carries a potential 10-year jail term.
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SINGAPORE: A 23-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly breaking into a rental flat along Yishun Ring Road and stealing eight mobile phones from five tenants.
The incident occurred in the early hours on Sunday (1 September), according to a statement from the Singapore Police Force.
The authorities reported that they received a call for assistance at around 5 a.m. on that day.
Officers from the Woodlands Police Division quickly responded and, through ground enquiries and police camera footage, were able to identify and apprehend the suspect on the same day.
The stolen mobile phones, with an estimated total value of approximately S$3,400, were recovered hidden under a nearby bin.
The suspect was charged in court on Monday with housebreaking with the intent to commit theft.
If convicted, he could face a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine.
In light of this incident, the police have advised property owners to take precautions to prevent similar crimes.
They recommend securing all doors, windows, and other openings with good quality grilles and padlocks when leaving premises unattended, even for short periods.
The installation of burglar alarms, motion sensor lights, and CCTV cameras to cover access points is also advised. Additionally, residents are urged to avoid keeping large sums of cash and valuables in their homes.
The investigation is ongoing.
Last month, police disclosed that a recent uptick in housebreaking incidents in private residential estates across Singapore has been traced to foreign syndicates, primarily involving Chinese nationals.
Preliminary investigations indicate that these syndicates operate in small groups, targeting homes by scaling perimeter walls or fences.
The suspects are believed to be transient travelers who enter Singapore on Social Visit Passes, typically just a day or two before committing the crimes.
Before this recent surge in break-ins, housebreaking cases were on the decline, with 59 reported in the first half of this year compared to 70 during the same period last year.
However, between 1 June and 4 August 2024, there were 10 reported housebreaking incidents, predominantly in private estates around the Rail Corridor and Bukit Timah Road.
The SPF has intensified efforts to engage residents near high-risk areas by distributing crime prevention advisories, erecting alert signs, and training them to patrol their neighborhoods, leading to an increase in reports of suspicious activity.
Current Affairs
Consumers Association of Singapore fined S$20,000 for PDPA breaches following two data security incidents
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The Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) has been fined S$20,000 by the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) for breaches under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).
According to a judgement which was published on 28 August, the fine was imposed due to the consumer watchdog’s failure to implement reasonable security measures to protect the personal data in its possession and to establish necessary policies and practices required under the PDPA.
The breaches resulted in two significant incidents, one in October 2022 and another in June 2023, where the personal data of up to 34,760 individuals was potentially compromised.
Both incidents were handled under the Expedited Decision Procedure (EDP) at the request of CASE, with the organization admitting to all the facts and contraventions of the PDPA, leading to a faster resolution of the case.
The First Incident: Phishing Attack in October 2022
The first incident occurred in October 2022 when a threat actor accessed CASE’s email accounts and sent phishing emails from its official email addresses.
On 8 October 2022, some consumers received unsolicited emails from “[email protected],” which falsely claimed that their complaints had been escalated to the “collections and compensation department” and that they were eligible for compensation.
The recipients were asked to provide their banking details by clicking on a chat icon.
The following day, similar phishing emails were sent from “[email protected],” an account used for complaints that had progressed to mediation. CASE later discovered that the phishing emails had affected up to 22,542 email addresses.
Further investigations revealed that the phishing emails likely resulted from the threat actor obtaining login credentials from a CASE employee via a phishing attack.
The compromised accounts led to the sending of 5,205 phishing emails to 4,945 recipients. Although CASE acted swiftly to suspend the affected accounts and reset all administrator passwords, three consumers reported that they had clicked on the phishing links and collectively lost S$217,900. CASE subsequently lodged a police report.
The Second Incident: Data Breach During Vendor Migration
While PDPC was investigating the first incident, a second breach came to light in June 2023. On 22 June 2023, PDPC received a complaint about a phishing email that replicated a consumer’s complaint previously submitted to CASE.
This led to the discovery that the personal data of 12,218 individuals, including names, email addresses, contact numbers, and complaint details, had been exposed. The PDPC concluded that the breach likely occurred during a data migration exercise conducted by CASE between December 2019 and January 2020 when CASE switched vendors.
Investigations revealed that CASE’s contract with one of its vendors, Total eBiz Solutions Pte Ltd (TES), did not stipulate clear security responsibilities. This lack of contractual clarity contributed to the data breach during the migration process, highlighting CASE’s negligent vendor management.
PDPC Findings and Penalties
The PDPC found that CASE had failed to enforce its password management policy, with some passwords not meeting minimum length and complexity requirements and others remaining unchanged for up to four years. Furthermore, CASE’s vendor management was deemed negligent, as one of its contracts did not specify clear security responsibilities, putting personal data at risk.
CASE admitted to not conducting regular security awareness training for its staff, with the last session held five years before the first incident.
The PDPC also noted that CASE lacked an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) policy, particularly in relation to patching and maintaining IT systems. The absence of a documented IT infrastructure management plan, insufficient logging and monitoring practices, and the lack of security reviews over the three years preceding the first breach were significant failures highlighted in the judgment.
In assessing the financial penalty, the PDPC considered the nature and gravity of the breaches, the duration of non-compliance, and CASE’s annual turnover. The fine of $20,000 was determined to be appropriate in light of these factors.
Remedial Actions by CASE
It is said that CASE, which is headed by Mr Melvin Yong, People’s Action Party Member of Parliament for Radin Mas, has implemented several measures to enhance its cybersecurity in response to the breaches.
These include introducing multi-factor authentication for all web-based applications, strengthening password complexity requirements, decommissioning end-of-life devices, and implementing patch management software for security updates.
CASE has also revised its contracts with outsourced vendors to include data protection clauses and mandated annual data protection training for all staff members.
CASE is working towards obtaining the Cyber Essentials Mark and the Data Protection Trust Mark to reinforce its commitment to safeguarding personal data and complying with PDPA obligations.
The PDPC has directed CASE to review and update its data protection policies, rectify all identified security gaps, and report back within one week of completion. The organization has also been instructed to conduct a penetration test after addressing the vulnerabilities to ensure no further security gaps exist.
The post Consumers Association of Singapore fined S$20,000 for PDPA breaches following two data security incidents appeared first on Gutzy Asia.
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