Singapore’s low-cost airline Scoot has issued an apology for mistakenly sending emails out to passengers who are not on Guangzhou-bound flight asking them to produce a negative COVID-19 certificate before they can board the flight.
It appears that the email was only meant for passengers who are set to be on flight TR100 from Singapore to Guangzhou, China departing on 30 August at 5.15 am.
However, the mass email was sent out around 2pm on Tuesday (25 August) to other customers who have travelled with Scoot in the past, or who have future bookings with Scoot.
The airline said in statement on Tuesday that the “erroneous email arouse due to human error, and was not a data security or hacking incident”.
“Scoot takes this incident very seriously and will conduct an internal review looking into how to further strengthen our internal processes. We have also informed Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission of the incident and contacted all affected customers with an explanation of what happened,” the statement read.
It added, “Scoot sincerely apologises to all affected customers”.
This incident came to light after customers took to their social media to highlight this issue.
Several people also wondered if the Scoot system was hacked somehow, resulting in this issue.
However, Scoot clarified in its statement that there was no leak of sensitive personal information, and that only first name and booking confirmation ID were included in the mass email.
“Scoot understands the worry and concerns customers would have over the use of their personal information. We have established that no new booking was created.
“There was also no leak of sensitive personal information; the personal information that was included in the erroneous email was limited to first name and booking confirmation ID, and the erroneous email was sent to the email address associated with the original booking,” the statement stated.
The budget airline also went on to say that it assures customers that no third part was sent an email with their personal information. “However, if they previously made a booking on another party’s behalf, they may see the other party’s first name in the email instead. No current bookings can be accessed with these information,” it noted.
