Three female beauty parlour managers were arrested for allegedly violating the Personal Data Protection Law to promote their services to the public, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said in a regular press conference yesterday.
Two of the three suspects are from Hong Kong, surnamed Tam and Lam, aged 46 and 39 respectively. The third suspect is a 49-year-old local surnamed Chan.
According to Lei, the Office for Personal Data Protection (GPDP) referred a case to the Judiciary Police early last month according to which the office had been receiving complaints from many citizens since early last year that they have been receiving calls on their smartphones promoting beauty parlour services, and the calls kept coming even though they had told the callers that they weren’t interested.
The GPDP office had discovered that the calls were made by staff of two marketing companies, mainly for four beauty parlours, owned by the same company, located in Areia Preta, Nam Van and Taipa.
Lei said the marketing companies involved in the promotion of beauty parlours collected and processed citizens’ personal data, but they failed to comply with the obligation to notify GPDP in accordance with the law. The GPDP had sent an official letter to the marketing companies and the company owning the four beauty parlours requesting an explanation, but it never received a reply from either.
According to Lei, PJ officers searched the four beauty parlours on Monday and seized a quantity of electronic files for collecting or processing personal data. They also seized seven VoIP system devices from a telecommunications company. After questioning 19 people about the case, PJ officers finally arrested the three suspects.
The trio were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges for failing to comply with data protection obligations.
According to Wikipedia, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei poses during yesterday’s regular press conference. Photo: Camy Tam
