‘Whistleblower’ sues Singapore Kindness Movement for revealing his details to woman he lodged complaint against

SINGAPORE: A man who lodged a complaint against an affiliate of the Singapore Kindness Movement is suing the charity for exposing his personal details to her. 

Mr Martin Piper’s civil suit against the Singapore Kindness Movement, a non-government Institution of Public Character opened at the State Courts on Monday (Aug 5). 

The 51-year-old, who is unemployed, is contending that the Singapore Kindness Movement breached its obligations under the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA) by revealing his name and email address to Ms Carol Loi Pui Wan, a woman he had complained about.

Ms Loi is the co-founder of the SGFamilies ground-up movement, which is an affiliate of the Singapore Kindness Movement. 

Ms Loi eventually filed a claim against Mr Piper under the Protection From Harassment Act 2014 (POHA) in September 2022.

However she dropped this claim, and a separate harassment claim by Mr Piper against Ms Loi was settled out of court last month, Mr Piper, a former Progress Singapore Party member, told CNA. Mr Piper left the opposition party in July last year.

Documents filed by Mr Piper’s lawyers Fong Wei Li and Tiffanie Lim of Forward Legal stated that their client suffered “financial loss and emotional distress” in responding to Ms Loi’s claim. Following his complaint, Mr Piper received death threats which referred to Ms Loi, according to his opening statement.

He is seeking damages – with the amount to be decided by the court – costs, and a declaration that the Singapore Kindness Movement breached its obligations under the PDPA. 

The Singapore Kindness Movement, represented by lawyers Senior Counsel Gregory Vijayendran and Meher Malhotra of Rajah & Tann, said their client’s efforts to connect Mr Piper and Ms Loi were not only rebuffed, but led to the organisation being caught in a crossfire between Mr Piper and Ms Loi. 

Dr William Wan, a Singapore Kindness Movement senior consultant, was present in court and is expected to be a witness for the defendant. 

MR PIPER’S CLAIM 

According to court documents, Mr Piper sent an email to the Singapore Kindness Movement on around Aug 27, 2022. The email contained his full name and email address, which were part of his personal data. 

“To (Mr Piper’s) knowledge, (Ms Loi) was engaging in discriminatory conduct by operating a chat group on Telegram Messenger which disseminated transphobic and anti-LGBT material,” Mr Piper’s statement of claim stated. 

Mr Piper knew that Ms Loi was affiliated with the Singapore Kindness Movement and therefore thought it appropriate to lodge a complaint to the charity about her conduct, it added. 

In a reply email, dated Sep 1, 2022, the Singapore Kindness Movement’s head of strategic marketing and communications Karun S’Baram said that Ms Loi was neither the owner nor founder of the Telegram chat, and that her involvement was limited to her personal capacity as a “concerned citizen”.

Mr Piper responded in a Sep 4, 2022, email to provide more information supplementing his complaint. 

In an email reply on Sep 7, 2022, Mr Karun responded to Mr Piper but copied Ms Loi in the email thread, exposing Mr Piper’s name and email address to her. 

Mr Piper’s lawyers said that the Singapore Kindness Movement had violated its obligations under the PDPA by failing to obtain his consent for the use or disclosure of his personal data, and revealing the entire email thread to Ms Loi without his consent, among other breaches. 

On around Sep 5, 2022, Ms Loi filed her suit against Mr Piper, alleging that he had caused her harassment due to the email thread. 

“In responding to the POHA claim, (Mr Piper) suffered financial loss and emotional distress,” his lawyers said. 

“Between October 2022 and May 2023, (Mr Piper) and/or his solicitors sought explanations from the (Singapore Kindness Movement) on (its) PDPA breaches. To date, the (Singapore Kindness movement) has not provided any substantive explanation.”

“The dismissive, cavalier and evasive response of the (Singapore Kindness Movement) in respect of its PDPA breaches exacerbated the emotional distress caused to (Mr Piper).”

The lawyers said that Mr Piper suffered loss, and damages, and experienced emotional distress as a result of the Singapore Kindness Movement’s alleged breaches of the PDPA. 

Mr Piper’s position should be likened to that of a whistleblower given the nature of the complaint, his lawyers argued. 

“Considering the fact that there is no overarching legislation governing legislation in Singapore, (Mr Piper) takes the position that it is crucial for the PDPA to be read in a manner that protects whistleblowers, notwithstanding the fact that the personal data can be used for investigative purposes,” they said.

SINGAPORE KINDNESS MOVEMENT’S CASE

The Singapore Kindness Movement described Mr Piper’s case as “unmeritorious”, and denied contravening its PDPA obligations.

In its opening statement, lawyers for the organisation pointed out that there was no evidence that Mr Piper had lodged a complaint with the Personal Data Protection Commission, as would have normally been the case for a complaint under the PDPA. 

The non-profit organisation will elaborate how it needed to discharge its investigative duties and promote conciliation between the parties. 

“This was also part and parcel of the (Singapore Kindness Movement) achieving their proactive, Samaritan and pacific goals: By authenticating the complaint and connecting (Mr Piper) to Ms Loi,” said the defendant in its opening statement. 

“Nonetheless, the (Singapore Kindness Movement’s) kind efforts in discharging such duties have not only been rebuffed but ultimately culminated in the (Singapore Kindness Movement) being caught in a crossfire between (Mr Piper) and Ms Loi.”

The lawyers said that the charity was “an innocent middleman” performing “an act of kindness” in line with its objectives. 

Among its arguments against the PDPA breaches, the charity argued that Mr Piper was deemed to have consented to the collection, use or disclosure of personal data as he voluntarily provided his personal data for the purposes of an investigation.

Questioning Mr Piper, who testified on the stand as the first witness on Monday, the defendant sought to argue that Mr Piper had not explicitly requested to stay anonymous and that it had been reasonable for Singapore Kindness Movement to have communicated his details. 

However, Mr Piper disagreed. He said it would have been reasonable for the Singapore Kindness Movement to have used his name and email address to contact him, but not to reveal the details to Ms Loi. 

Mr Vijayendran then put to Mr Piper: “I’m going to put it to you, because you voluntarily agreed to provide your personal data to Singapore Kindness Movement for the investigation, you had impliedly consented to the disclosure of your personal data for their investigation.”

Mr Piper disagreed. Referring to his experience as a former senior manager with Standard Chartered Bank dealing with staff complaints, Mr Piper said that while he was expected to reply to complainants, he was not supposed to disclose complainants’ names to the subjects of complaints. 

“This is normal confidentiality procedure,” he added. 

Mr Vijayendran also argued that whistleblowing typically related to management or staff within an organisation and that the analogy was not applicable in this case, as Ms Loi was not employed with the Singapore Kindness Movement or within its management.

Mr Piper disagreed with these statements. 

The trial continues on Monday and is slated to run until Tuesday.