Nearly 100,000 Bee Cheng Hiang customers' email addresses exposed in first AI-related data breach in Singapore

The incident was caused by a human error in developing the email distribution code with an AI tool, the Personal Data Protection Commission said.

A Bee Cheng Hiang shop near Lavender MRT station. The retailer is known for its barbecued meat products. (Photo: Facebook/Bee Cheng Hiang Singapore)

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SINGAPORE: The email addresses of nearly 100,000 Bee Cheng Hiang customers were disclosed without consent in what the Personal Data Protection Commission said on Wednesday (Sep 30) was the first AI-related data breach in Singapore that it has been notified of.

The breach occurred in April after a Bee Cheng Hiang employee used an AI tool to generate a Python script to distribute a marketing email. The resulting code caused the recipients' email addresses to be visible to everyone, affecting a total of 95,364 customers .

"The incident was caused by a human error in developing the email distribution code with an AI tool," the PDPC said in response to queries from CNA.

According to a statement posted on its website on Sep 21, PDPC said the incident was "not a malfunction in the AI tool", but a result of the prompt given to it by the employee.

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