Singapore Ministry of Health Data Breach (2020)

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said yesterday that it has suspended one of its officers after she allegedly leaked the number of new daily coronavirus cases in Singapore and retrieved a Covid-19 patient's records without authorisation. The 35-year-old civil servant is a Singaporean woman and was arrested under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) and Computer Misuse Act, the police said on Thursday. MOH added that it is now reviewing its processes to ensure that the necessary information security protocols are in place. "The officer has been suspended from work while police investigations are ongoing, and no longer has access to the ministry's confidential information," MOH said in its statement. "Confidential information relating to Covid-19 cases is placed in a secured server that is only accessible by a restricted group of officers who require the information for their work. The officer had authorised access to the information as required for her work, but had allegedly used the access for other unauthorised purposes." The police said on Thursday they had received a report on the incident on April 16 at 7.43pm from a member of the public that the number of daily confirmed Covid-19 cases in Singapore for that day had been leaked on an Instagram post.