Singapore Watchdog fines Grabcar $10,000 for Data Privacy Violation

Singapore’s privacy watchdog fined ride-hailing app Grabcar $10,000. The reason of the huge fine as that a 2019 update put the data of its some users at risk of unauthorized access.

Singapore’s privacy watchdog fined ride-hailing app Grabcar $10,000. The reason of the huge fine as that a 2019 update put the data of its some users at risk of unauthorized access. The watchdog stated that this was the fourth breach of data privacy regulations and a significant cause of concern.

Grabcar is a unit of Southeast Asia’s largest startup Grab holdings. The Personal Data Protection Commission mentioned in a filing that the update risked the personal data of 21,541 drivers and passengers. This includes their names, profile pictures, vehicle plate numbers related to carpooling service GrabHitch.

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The glitch was fixed in less than an hour but the commission said that the company should have properly scoped pre-launch test of the update before deployment.

In a statement in response to Reuter’s query Grab said, “To prevent a recurrence, we have since introduced more robust processes, especially pertaining to our IT environment testing, along with updated governance procedures and an architecture review of our legacy application and source codes”.

Grab is operational in 351 cities and has diversified into digital offerings such as financial technology services, food delivery, etc.