A female prison officer has been charged for the unauthorised access into the Singapore Prison Service's (SPS) management system.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Koh Mun Keong stated in court on Jan. 10, 2020 that a police report was made by a prison superintendent on Nov. 12, 2018.

Fitria Binte Asri, the female officer who has been charged, had allegedly accessed the system without authorisation and retrieved the information of inmates not under her charge.

Fitria was part of the superintendent's staff.

At that time, she was deployed as a Staff Officer at Changi Prison Complex.

All officers employed in the SPS are issued with a user account to access the system and are aware that they are only permitted to use the system for official matters and not personal ones.

Redeployed to a different prison cluster

Fitria had joined the SPS on March 17, 2009.

Before tendering her resignation on Oct. 18, 2018 due to disciplinary issues, she was an officer managing a cohort of about 10 inmates undergoing a rehabilitation programme.

She was given access to the system to carry out her work duties.

Her last day in service was on Nov. 17, 2018.

Before her resignation, she was redeployed to another programme on Oct. 19, 2018.

Between Oct. 19 to Nov. 2, 2018, Fitria's colleague at the time would lend the accused her laptop to perform checks in the system.

This was done so that the accused could perform necessary searches for the work assigned to her.

Accessed the system via a colleague's laptop

On Nov. 2, 2018, due to the circumstances of Fitria's resignation, an audit check was conducted on the various times that she had accessed the system.

The audit revealed that Fitria had accessed the information of inmates from the different clusters of the Changi Prison Complex between Oct. 23 and Nov. 5, 2018, when she was not authorised to do so.

She had accessed the information via her colleague's laptop.

According to court documents, the accused had performed unauthorised searches on 49 occasions, which were all for non-work related purposes.

The accused admitted that she made the searches despite being unauthorised, as she knew some of the inmates personally, and searched them up out of curiosity.

The laptop has since been seized on April 1, 2019.

Charges

Fitria faces three charges of unauthorised access to computer material, which is punishable under the Computer Misuse Act.

She could face up to three weeks' jail for each charge.

“I apologise and I will not repeat the mistake again,” Fitria told the judge.

She subsequently asked for three weeks' deferment to settle work and financial matters, which was granted.

Any person who knowingly causes a computer to perform any function for the purpose of securing access without authority to any programme or data held in any computer shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding S$5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to both.

In the case of a second or subsequent conviction, one shall be liable to a fine not exceeding S$10,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to both.

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