67. PDPA: A Big Slip-Up

During our first breakfast at the Maison Rouge in Strasbourg, my husband told me that he had the email addresses of every guest in this restaurant.

"What do you mean?" I asked while sipping my cappuccino and looking unconvinced.

"Really, the email addresses. Everyone here!" he insisted. 

It turned out that several days prior to our check-in date, he had received an email from the property, highlighting pertinent information that relates to the period of our stay during the festive week.It also informed us of their limited parking on-site and its corresponding charges.

The thing is, this email was also sent to at least 50 other individuals - all under CC, not BCC. Putting all guests' email addresses into the visible CC field is a huge breach of the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).

My husband had written back to the Front Desk - not to all recipients of course - that it was "not cool" to have all email contacts visible. He received a prompt response from another employee with barely two sentences, including an apology (sincere?) and about looking forward to having us there. 

~

During our stay, we had received some subpar service from the young female receptionist who looked disinterested and missed following up on two of our requests. It was disappointing that we had to repeat our requests all over again to another colleague when we returned to the hotel in the evening. Fortunately this time round, it was the friendly employee who had warmly welcomed us on the first day. He apologised for their oversight and saw to our easy requests right away. He then asked for feedback of our overall stay experience and "anything else we could share with the team".

At that moment, we thought of bringing up the mass email that we had received, when I realised from the employee's name tag, that he was the one who had sent it in the first place. Since he had been providing us with good service all along, we decided to not mention the big gaffe and just let it slide. After all, we are sure he had since learnt to be more careful when sending out such emails in future!


Learning from this episode:

  • Always check the fields before sending out your emails (and especially when groups of external parties are involved)

  • Reciprocity matters - be nice to others and others are more likely to treat you the same. (If it was the female receptionist who had sent the compromising email, the chances that we would mention it might be much higher.)


Reflective thoughts: What follow-up actions should the hotel have carried out upon learning of this grave mistake which violates the PDPA? ?

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