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Last Friday, a Malaysian Instagram page, nuk.media put up a reel discussing the ethics of publishing information sourced from Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) company reports.

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A post shared by Now U Know (@nuk.media)

For context, anyone can purchase reports of private companies (Sendirian Berhad) from SSM. All you have to do is visit this page, look for the company via the search bar, then pay for the report(s).

SSM even provides a step-by-step guide for this, as these documents are intentionally made available to the public to promote transparency, accountability, and fair trade. After all, if you were about to do business with a company, you would want to verify their legitimacy first.

However, the issue nuk.media highlighted isn’t about accessibility – it’s about how that data is used. They argued that content creators are weaponizing this transparency and violating personal privacy by broadcasting directors’ full names, MyKad numbers, and home addresses to the masses. As they put it:

…the data being viewable does not mean that the data is yours to spread…

For example, someone could look up the directors of a restaurant, and point out that a non-Muslim individual shouldn’t be a director of a halal certified restaurant, even though the individual could just be injecting funds into the business without being involved in day-to-day operations.

This has, of course, ignited a series of heated debates in the post’s comments section, with some netizens saying that the information is available to the public and there’s nothing to fear if there’s nothing to hide…

…and others agreeing with the message of the post.

And it’s probably at this point you’re wondering…

Is It Illegal to Post Information From An SSM Report On Social Media?

While we aren’t legal experts, local law firm Clarissa Tan & Wong weighed in on the matter, noting that it is technically legal.

According to them, the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA) generally doesn’t cover company information. Furthermore, they cited a Malaysian High Court case (Electro Cad Australia Pty Ltd & Ors v Mejati RCS Sdn Bhd & Ors), which established that information cannot be deemed confidential if it is already publicly known, easily obtained, or lacks measures to keep it secret.

Because SSM reports are accessible to anyone with some money to spare, the information inside them doesn’t meet the legal threshold for confidentiality.

Be that as it may, there is some validity to the argument for privacy – if you were a director of your own company, you probably wouldn’t want some content creator blasting your name and MyKad number out in the public.

It is worth noting, however, that the public doesn’t get total access; information regarding the beneficial ownership of companies remains restricted to specific individuals and regulatory agencies. But for everything else? It seems like a legal gray area at the worst.

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