By Terry Xu
On 11th Apri 2013, Mr Tan Toh Hwee received a letter from Nanyang Junior College Alumni to attend Nanyang Junior College 35th anniversary dinner.
Upon a closer look at the invitation, he was puzzled over how Nanyang Junior College (NYJC) came to know his new mailing address. As he moved to his current residence about 4 year ago and had never provided any update to the Alumni since he left Nanyang Junior College more than 20 years back.
When Mr Tan called up Nanyang Junior College and ask them about this, his request was channeled over to the Alumni Association. Instead of replying the question of how they got his updated mailing address, the Alumni offered him a VIP seat for the anniversary dinner. Mr Tan turned down the offer and insisted for an answer to how and where they got hold of his mailing address.
After more than one week, the reply from the Alumni Association was that they found his mailing address online via yellow pages. (see email attachment)
Mr Tan shared with TOC on why he rejected their answer due to the following reasons:
1. How can they search each and everyone using yellow pages since they claim they have more than 20,000 members in Alumni?
2. How they solve the issue of duplicate entries? Mr Tan’s name appear twice in yellow pages with 2 different mailing address. How they narrow down to the right person? For some names, this duplication is more than just two.
3. He has knowledge of at least 2 cases where the names are not in yellow pages and also have their mailing address changed as well. Yet, they still got the invitation letter.
As of today, the Alumni Association have been very quiet and never reply to his mail since the last mail sent in 10th May 2013. He believes that there should be quite a significant number of people having the similar experience as him.
“l do hope the Alumni can come clean on their action and fully disclose where and how they obtain such personal information. l view such unauthorized access to personal information as a serious act and l don’t think is right for them to keep quite on this issue. It really reflects very badly how the Alumni is being run and l really doubt who want to be associated with them or the Junior College.” – Mr Tan on this incident
The Online Citizen has written to Nanyang Junior College on 4th June over this incident and has not received any clarification till date. TOC called to the NYJC staff in-charge of Alumni matters in mid of June but have not heard from the lady staff after promising to call back. TOC has also contacted the Alumni who contacted Mr Tan to clarify the issue with him but was also placed on hold after promising to call back.
Hopefully Mr Tan and other Alumni of Nanyang Junior College can get some answers in the near future.
