SINGAPORE, Aug 26 — Budget airline Scoot said yesterday it was “human error” that led to an email being mistakenly sent to customers who had not booked a flight to Guangzhou, China, and that required them to undertake a Covid-19 test.
Earlier yesterday, Scoot apologised for the “oversight” and assured customers that there was no data breach or leak of personal information, but said it was investigating the matter.
In its update on Tuesday night, Scoot said that the email — meant only for customers booked on Scoot flight TR100 from Singapore to Guangzhou departing on Sunday — was erroneously sent at about 2pm on Tuesday to “a distribution list containing customers who have travelled with Scoot in the past, or who have future bookings with Scoot”.
“This erroneous email arose due to human error, and was not a data security or hacking incident,” it said.
In the email, passengers are told that they are required by the Chinese authorities to undertake a nucleic acid test within five days before the flight to certify that they test negative for Covid-19.
Scoot said that it understood the “worry and concerns” of customers over the use of their personal information and stressed that no new booking was created and 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.”
It also said that no personal information was sent to a third party. However, if customers had previously made a booking on someone’s behalf, they may see the other person’s first name in the email. No current bookings can be accessed with the information contained in the email, it added.
Scoot said it is taking the incident “very seriously”, and will conduct an internal review to examine how it can strengthen its internal processes.
It has also informed the Personal Data Protection Commission of the incident and contacted all affected customers with an explanation of what happened.
“Scoot sincerely apologises to all affected customers,” it said. — TODAY
