Phone survey on PKR polls ongoing, some cry privacy breach

Some PKR members have been on the receiving end of a phone survey which enquired whether they agreed with Rafizi Ramli's nomination for the PKR deputy presidency.

A recording of the phone call (attached below), which was made available to Malaysiakini, required the recipient to key in "1" or "2" to state whether they agreed with the question asked.

Checks with PKR division heads from several states revealed that they were aware of the matter, although it would appear that only some of their members have received the phone call.

According to one division head who declined to be named, if a candidate possessed phone numbers of all PKR members, it would give that person an unfair advantage.

What was strange, said this division leader, was that even newly registered party members within his division who only came on board in June had received the telephone survey as well.

"In the member application forms that I received, a phone number was not even needed from the new applicants," said the division head.

In a statement today, Selangor PKR communications head Nor Hizwan Ahmad said that the telephone survey was a breach of Section 6 of the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 which prevented the use of personal information without consent.

"In this context, it is the misuse of telephone numbers belonging to PKR members," he said.

He warned that the upcoming PKR internal elections would be closely watched, and hoped that candidates campaigned in an ethical manner.

Malaysiakini has contacted Rafizi for a response. He said he would only be releasing a statement today.

'Creative' campaign

When met at the PKR headquarters today, party secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution said Rafizi's marketing firm Invoke Malaysia might have access to phone number of PKR members through his earlier work for the 14th general election.

"Invoke has data on voters nationwide. There are 841,000 PKR members who can vote in the party elections. Perhaps some of them are a subset of Invoke's data.

"Invoke has data on the B40 (and the federal government's) e-Kasih (programme). That is his core business, something they can make use of," said Saifuddin.

He said that in an party as big as PKR, it was a given that some candidates would employ some "creativity" in their campaign.

"What's important is that the campaign cannot involve inducement because it would spoil the democratic principle. Secondly, the election cannot be tainted. If a candidate with government position abuses his power to campaign, that is an offence.

"(Internal election) campaigns will evolve with technology - social media, Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp (for example) - just like what happened during GE14.

"PKR is at the fore in using big data. It involves sampling. There are PKR members who can do this. As long as we don't violate our principles, I don't think this contest will have problems," he said. -Mkini