Malaysia says it won’t block officials from the net

Malaysia has announced that it will not block officials’ devices from using the internet, after Singapore’s plan was leaked yesterday.

There is no need to block access to the Internet to prevent the leak of sensitive information, said Dr Ali Hamsa, Chief Secretary to the Government, according to a Bernama report.

"We will not issue any ban yet because if there were any leakages, it is not necessarily done online. There are also other means for leakages to occur”, he said.

"There have been cases of leakages in the past, for example leakages through social media”, but this was minor, he added. “There have been specific cases, such as spreading secret information via Whatsapp.”

"We have our own process to penalise anyone found to have leaked information. These include disciplinary actions and warnings," he added. Singapore’s move to block internet aims to seal off government data from “exfiltration attempts”.

It has blocked internet access for a select few of public service officers, and will implement it for the rest of its officers over a year, the government stated.