Where do you live? A S$5.50 fee can tell all

Singapore

"KAYPOHS", or nosy parkers, who once treated initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses like the phone book have found it harder to learn company directors' home addresses.

All seven IPO prospectuses lodged here in the first six months gave a full slate of "care of" (c/o) office addresses for their leadership teams.

This is a reversal from 15 years ago, when CEOs, managing directors and financial officers disclosed their abodes across the board, in the 18 IPO prospectuses in the first half of 2003.

But whether uniform privacy rules could prevail here remains to be seen.

Reticence became easier on Jan 3, 2016, when directors could list alternate addresses in Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) records, thanks to changes made to the Companies Act two years prior.

Alternate addresses - which cannot be post office boxes - are where individuals can be located within the same jurisdiction as their homes.

Directors must still give Acra their home addresses, which the agency is empowered to list in public records if alternate addresses do not pan out.

Yet these changes to the Companies Act took more than a decade to gel with Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) standards for disclosure.

According to an MAS spokesman, bourse issuers have had to disclose directors' addresses in IPO prospectuses since 2002 - but can put either business or residential addresses, "as long as the directors can be contacted at the relevant addresses regarding the affairs of the issuer".

"Over the years, there has been a shift in market practice towards the use of business addresses for security and privacy reasons," the spokesman for the MAS added.

TSMP Law Corp managing partner Stefanie Yuen Thio had warned during a public consultation on proposed tweaks to the Companies Act in 2011: "In a worst-case scenario, if someone had a dispute with a director, he could go harass him or his family."

Members of the public can get their hands on personal particulars in some cases. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can buy a company profile from Acra - with details such as directors' addresses and NRIC numbers - for S$5.50.

Other agencies with similar services include the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, which does checks on a property's value and owners for S$2.50, and the Singapore Land Authority, which offers information such as land tenure, ownership, and caveats and mortgages for S$16.

A spokesman for Acra told BT that the agency is required by law to keep and give public access to information on businesses registered with it.

"Such information enables the public to identify and conduct checks on the background of the business entities and the individuals involved in running and managing the business entities, and thus make informed decisions when dealing with them."

The Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO), part of the Prime Minister's Office, noted that it already has a three-pronged framework for public access to personal data.

Government agencies share the information when required by law - such as for corporate accountability purposes - or when "there is sufficient public interest to justify the access, including the example of the verification of land ownership". They can also do so with prior individual consent.

"Currently, these principles are put into practice based on agencies' specific functions and objectives," a SNDGO spokesman said.

Otherwise, government agencies are not allowed to disclose personal data to non-government third parties.

"The guidelines and processes will be reviewed over time, to put in place best practices," added the spokesman.

Meanwhile, Acra said that it "is reviewing the need to display identification numbers . . . in full in Acra's public register", as it is "mindful of the need to reduce the risk of personal data exposure where possible".

Lee & Lee senior partner Adrian Chan, who sits on the board of five Singapore-listed firms, is comfortable giving his home address in records.

But he noted that the bourse and industry have generally accepted the shift towards business addresses: "All these developments reflect the growing recognition of an individual's privacy rights. If there are necessary safeguards in place to prevent abuse, this should be a welcome state of affairs."

The change in disclosure has also been driven by a fear of malicious people getting their hands on directors' particulars - and "the internet multiplies the degree of that threat exponentially", Mr Chan added.

Asked whether investors might get some peace of mind from knowing where they can get a hold of directors, David Gerald, chief executive and president of the Securities Investors Association (Singapore), told BT that he, too, was not in favour of home addresses being provided.

"Anyone having a problem with a director should go to the company, so the company's address is sufficient."