GE15: voters raise alarm over SMS, letters from parties asking for votes

KUALA LUMPUR – With polling a day away, concerned voters are raising the alarm over possible data breaches after receiving text messages and letters with their personal details from certain political parties. 

One Muar voter, who wished to be known as Tan, shared with The Vibes a screenshot of a text message (SMS) she received on Wednesday (November 16) titled InfoPRU (general election information) from an unknown number.

“At first I thought the message was from the Election Commission (EC) or some other neutral body but there was a link attached in the text.

“When I clicked on it, it brought me to a Perikatan Nasional (PN) website, which listed out all my private information and promoted the PN candidate for Muar (Abdullah Husin). 

“The thing that really got to me was that whoever sent the SMS has access to my identification card (MyKad) number and my phone number. When I received the SMS and realised that my data was breached, it made me feel really annoyed.” 

While the link Tan received was written as infopru.com, checks by The Vibes revealed that when the address is entered into a search engine, users are automatically redirected to pnbest.my, a website that appears to be one of PN’s official campaign platforms. 

Tan said she is “disgusted at how PN attempts to trick voters”.  

“I’m even more certain now of my choice to not vote for a party that would attempt to create a wrong impression by hiding behind an official-sounding front,” she said, noting that she had received similar messages from Barisan Nasional (BN) during the Johor election in March. 

“Is the EC aware (of such manoeuvres)? Is the body doing anything at all?” she questioned, asserting that she is “very concerned” at the ostensible lack of governance surrounding the implementation of the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA). 

Abdullah is part of a three-cornered fight for the Muar federal seat, with his contestants being incumbent Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman (Muda) and BN’s Helmy Abd Latif. 

Meanwhile, Gombak voter Siti and her family members were none too happy when they discovered several pieces of paper containing their personal details and voting stream left in their mailbox on Monday. 

The papers, which had the BN logo and “Vote for BN” prominently displayed at the top of each page, incited unease in Siti, who will be voting for the first time since the ballot papers for her postal vote had only arrived on the voting day during the previous general election. 

“It feels like this is a violation of the PDPA. I’m not sure where they got my information from, but they didn’t bother concealing my IC number before leaving the paper in my mailbox. 

“What if I was no longer living at the address they sent the letters to? My personal details could have ended up in the wrong hands because of them,” she said, adding that several of her colleagues have been on the receiving end of similarly distressing campaigns. 

BN’s candidate for the Gombak federal seat is Datuk Megat Zulkarnain Omardin, who is going against the constituency’s incumbent MP Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali (PN), Pakatan Harapan’s Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari, Pejuang’s Aziz Jamaludin Mohd Tahir and independent Zulkifli Ahmad.

Malaysians will head to the ballot box tomorrow. – The Vibes, November 18, 2022