Current Affairs
Pasir Ris ONE DBSS – yet another development under fire
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In what is becoming a recurring series of incidents, another group of homeowners of new flats are crying foul at the shoddy workmanship and design of their homes.
The Online Citizen (TOC) understands that some of the owners of the new Pasir Ris ONE have just received their keys to their new homes which are located at the junction of Pasir Ris Central and Pasir Ris Drive 1, a stone’s throw away from the Pasir Ris MRT station.
The 447-unit development is one under the Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS), and consists of three-, four- and five-room flats.
The purchase prices of these homes are reported to be between S$390,000 to S$470,000 for 3-room flats, and S$550,000 to S$670,000 for 4-rooms. (See here.)
The Pasir Ris ONE website lists the prices for 5-rooms as follow:
DBSS flats are supposed to come with better finishings and design, as buyers pay a premium for them.
However, since owners had entry to their homes the last few months, it has emerged that the workmanship has left a lot to be desired.
For a start, the corridors of the flats are so narrow that two persons can hardly walk side by side.
When TOC measured the corridor of one block, it was precisely 1.2m wide.
This is believed to be the minimum required by HDB and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) safety rules.
According to the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) website:
It is also worth noting that in a parliamentary reply in 2013 to a question of ensuring “clear passages along common corridors of HDB flats”, the Ministry of National Development said it was revising the clearance required from 1.2m to 1.5m, to provide for safety and rescue purposes.
“To prepare for an ageing population and to provide wider access routes for people using mobility aids, BCA announced revisions to the Code on Accessibility last month.
“The revisions include a wider minimum clearance width of 1.5m along corridors for buildings with plans submitted for regulatory approval on or after 1 Apr 2014.”
Some of the gates at the main doors of opposite flats along the corridors are so close together that the gates almost touch each other when they are swung open.
It is thus unclear how the homeowners of the Pasir Ris ONE flats would have the requisite allowable and safety space in their corridors if they were to, for example, place a shoe rack or a bicycle outside their main doors.
Another curious placement issue is the way the gas vents have been installed on the ceilings along the corridors.
Besides its questionable aesthetic design, is there also a safety issue here if an incident of leakage or fire should happen, especially with the narrow corridors?
Besides safety, there are also concerns of security with how the flats are designed.
Burglars or others with ill intention could gain easy entry into their homes through the air-conditioner ledges, for example, and enter the flats though the windows.
Here is how it looks like, outside a ground floor flat:
Here is another view:
It would not be too hard for someone to climb to the upper floors through these balconies.
And for some unknown reasons, TOC understands that the owners cannot make use of the entire ledge, although the floor area of the ledge is included as part of the size of the flat.
And even over at the community barbeque pits, the design also came under fire, as one resident posted on the Pasir Ris ONE Facebook page on 4 June:
TOC measured the height of the pit and it was about 1.3m high – from the ground to where the wire mesh would be. This would make it hard for anyone who is below, say, 1.7m to manage the barbeque.
This writer – who is 1.7m tall – is pictured here at the pit:
When it comes to drying the laundry, the clothes rack isn’t something to crow about either.
The rack is so small it can hardly dry any clothes; and also, the sun is blocked by the ledge above the rack which is presumably to prevent litter from the upper floors from reaching the lower ones.
These would make drying your laundry quite a challenge.
These are some issues which residents have with the external surroundings of the flats.
What about the insides?
Not much better.
TOC understands that owners face many defects which need to be rectified.
These include tiles in the living room which were either scratched, or have different shades of colour, or the groutings were poorly finished, while others have uneven flooring which need to be corrected.
Some of the grilles at the balcony were also badly painted, and others had leaky pipes in the kitchen.
The placement of the water heater in their kitchens is also another issue.
When it is turned on, the heater can become a safety hazard, and it also contributes to warming up the kitchen when cooking is also in process because of the inefficient ventilation design.
In the bedrooms, there were more defects – there were windows which took some effort to open, and toilet and shower doors were designed such that one has to close one in order to have enough space to open the other.
And then there were the cracked tiles and poor grouting work.
Some bedroom doors were also faulty, leaving big gaps between the door and the floor. There were also faulty window screws, window frames, door handles, chipped doors, bad wiring, dirty toilet bowls, and poorly installed floor tiles, among many other complaints.
Some have complained that the master room, which is 15sqm, is so small it can barely fit a king-sized bed, leaving scarce room to walk.
According to HDB rules, homeowners have one year to inform the developer of any defects.
Pasir Ris ONE is a joint project between Sing Haiyi Group and Kay Lim Holdings.
Homeowners have since created a private Facebook group to highlight the flaws in their homes.
Such problems in new developments have been reported by new owners of other DBSS flats at the Trivelis in Clementi and Centrale 8 in Tampines in the last two months, along with several other groups of owners of build-to-order flats, such as in Punggol and Bukit Panjang, in the last few years.
In its response to all these, the HDB said earlier in June that the defects were merely “surface imperfections.”
“This is due mainly to the inherent features of natural materials or the nature of construction works that are dependent on manual labour,” a HDB spokesman said.
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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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