A spamming we will go, a spamming we will go...but at what cost?

By Lyn Boxall, Director, Lyn Boxall LLC

On Thursday 14 May 2020, the Ministry of Communications and Information and the Personal Data Protection Commission of Singapore launched an online public consultation of the Personal Data Protection (Amendment) Bill 2020.

Perhaps counterintuitively, one of the things that the amendment bill does is to amend the Spam Control Act. So, let’s see what that is all about.

But first, for a sneak preview – this paper is about:

• what is being taken out of the Spam Control Act and

• what is being put into the Personal Data Protection Act, the PDPA

The headlines are that:

• messages sent via an instant messaging service will be within the scope of the Do Not Call provisions in the PDPA

• that dictionary attacks and address-harvesting software used to gather telephone numbers will be prohibited by the PDPA and

• the Commission will be able to enforce compliance with the Do Not Call provisions and compliance with the prohibition on dictionary attacks and address-harvesting software by issuing directions, including directions requiring payment of a monetary penalty

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