Who was sanctioned, and for what?

After a cyberattack on the travel agency became public in December 2023, data on 336,759 individuals in its booking system was affected, in some cases including full images of identity cards, passports and birth certificates; part of the data was exfiltrated. The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC, Singapore's data protection authority) found negligent breaches of the Accountability Obligation – a data protection officer appointed only in April 2024, and apart from the customer-facing privacy policy no internal policies, no complaints process and no information to staff – and of the Protection Obligation, because there were no contracts with the IT vendors covering security tasks, no security reviews and no multi-factor authentication, and the server was still running the unsupported Windows Server 2012. It imposed 47,000 SGD, rejected objections based on COVID-19 losses and comparable cases, and directed among other things policies, security clauses in vendor contracts and a penetration test by a provider licensed by the Cyber Security Agency (CSA).

Authority / court

Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC)

Area of law

Data protection · Data subject rights and transparency

Legal basis

Sections 11(3) und 12 PDPA 2012 (Accountability Obligation); Section 24 PDPA (Protection Obligation); Section 48J(1)(a) PDPA (Financial Penalty); Section 48I PDPA (Directions)

Action

Fine

Status of proceedings

unknown

Sector

Other

Culpability

negligent

Mitigating circumstances

Voluntary early admission of the breaches (treated as significantly mitigating) and prompt, effective remediation.

Published

8 Jan 2026

Original amount 47,000 SGD, converted at the ECB reference rate of 31 Oct 2025.

Checked against the official source on 4 Oct 2026 · Direct link

When API configurations were manually transferred to a new middleware platform (September 2022 to March 2023), a single employee in sole charge omitted an app identifier, so token verification did not apply to the web page of the ArtScience Friends museum programme for at least six months; an attacker exploited this in October 2023 and retrieved data on 665,495 members of the Sands Rewards Lifestyle loyalty programme, which was then offered for sale on the dark web. The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC, Singapore's data protection authority) held that the resort had negligently breached the Protection Obligation by relying on this one employee without independent checks or automation. It reduced the provisionally intended 450,000 SGD to 315,000 SGD after the company's representations; no directions were issued because remediation had already been carried out.

Authority / court

Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC)

Area of law

Data protection · Data breaches and data security

Legal basis

Section 24 Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (Protection Obligation); Section 48J PDPA (Financial Penalty)

Action

Fine

Status of proceedings

unknown

Sector

Other

Culpability

negligent

Repeat case

no

Mitigating circumstances

Otherwise adequate security arrangements, containment on the day of discovery, admission under the Expedited Decision Procedure, cooperation and voluntary notification of all affected individuals.

Published

28 Oct 2025

Original amount 315,000 SGD, converted at the ECB reference rate of 28 Oct 2025.

Checked against the official source on 4 Oct 2026 · Direct link