MP: Gov't abused telcos by spamming customers

Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching today alleged that major telcos spamming five million Merdeka celebration text messages was a breach of the Personal Data Protection Act and an abuse by the government.

"Personal data is given in confidence to telecommunications service providers for the purpose of obtaining their services, and shall not be used for any other purposes without the consent of the data subject," she said in a statement today.

Teo was responding to the, Communications and Culture Ministry'srevelation in Parliament that the government sent 5,782,000 text messages for this year’s Merdeka celebration through cellular service providers Celcom, Maxis, DiGi and U-mobile.

Parliament was further informed that the barrage of text messages that cost RM332,599 was borne entirely by the telco companies.

"Even though the SMS did not cost taxpayers a single cent, it is questionable whether the said telecommunication service providers have breached the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 which came into force in June this year," said Teo.

Teo pointed out that under the law, unsolicited text messages may only be sent with prior agreement from the recipient.

"Failing which, it is a clear breach of the Personal Data Protection Act 2010, and is punishable with a fine not exceeding RM300,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both, under Section 5(2) of the Act.”

This, she said, was laid out in Section 6(1)(a) of the law while Section 6(2) and Section 6(3) spells out under what circumstances telcos can use their customers' personal data.

‘MCMC shouldn’t promote spamming’

She also took the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to task for promoting spam instead of doing its job of curbing the menace.

She  described the regulator as unethical for demanding such services from the telco companies when it should instead be regulating them

"Instead of upholding the Personal Data Protection Act and taking firm action against content providers who spam us regularly with unsolicited SMSes, MCMC is 'requesting' the service providers to spam its customers.

"Malaysians have the right not to be spammed by anyone, including the telecommunications companies and our government. 

“There is no doubt about it - this is clearly a blatant abuse of power," she said.