Singapore: Indian-origin employee jailed for five weeks for illegally collecting salary information of colleagues

A Singapore court on Thursday sentenced an Indian-origin officer to five weeks in jail. The Indian-origin employee is accused of illegally asking a former colleague of DBS Bank to provide information about the salaries of his other colleagues.

News agency PTI reported that Indian-origin employees work in Singapore's Ministry of Manpower. Dinath Silvamani, 35, pleaded guilty to four counts under the Computer Misuse Act after he asked Leong Yan Sin, his former colleague at DBS Bank, to access a database containing information about customers.

Leong, a former associate of Dinath Silvamani, had such powers with which he could collect information about customers. They had information about the dues and payments of these customers. However, the bank officer should not have given out such information keeping in mind the company rules.

According to the information, Dinath Silvamani was a collection officer before working in the Manpower Ministry. Dinath Silvamani asked Leong in June 2018 to help him locate the salary details of colleagues working at the Ministry of Manpower so that he could compare them with his own.

The prosecution said that he (the Indian-origin employee) wanted to compare his salary with that of other colleagues. Therefore he had asked his former colleague to provide information. Leong had accessed the database between June 2018 and November 2018. After gathering information, Leong sent the details to Dinath via WhatsApp.