When Cynthia Hor saw the signs of land erosion on the hill which her apartment faces, she thought she would do her civic duty and report it to her local council.

“I thought okay, I’ll write in to the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ), no harm done, doing my civic duty, right?

“This was against my friend’s advice, ‘don’t get yourself into so much trouble,” she said to Malaysiakini today.

But she was concerned the erosion could potentially cause a landslide, and there were houses at the bottom of the hill which would be affected, so she went ahead and lodged a complaint with MBPJ.

“I did it anyway, I took photos, I spent a few minutes thinking of what to say and sent it in,” she said.

MBPJ investigated her complaint and once they determined the erosion was at dangerous levels, sent a letter to the company which owns the land to rectify this issue.

However, Cynthia was shocked when she received a copy of that letter and realised that her name and her full address were included in the letter, identifying her as the complainant.

“I came home from Chinese New Year break, got the letter, opened it up and thought oh my goodness, on the second page was my name and my address as the complainant.

“Can you imagine? ... I thought, I better start thinking about moving out.

“I was planning to move out anyway, just that I didn’t know I had to go so fast,” Hor said, adding that she lives with her three-year-old child and her 86-year-old mother.

She had earlier posted about this issue on her Facebook, questioning why MBPJ had to include her details as the complainant.

“Now I am waiting for my car to get vandalised or worse,” she had said in the posting.

None will stick neck out if this is SOP

If revealing the complainant’s details is the MBPJ’s standard operating procedure (SOP), Hor said no one else would want to lodge any complaints with the local council anymore.

“If this is their SOP, no one is going to file any complaints, no one is going to stick their necks out.

“I can laugh about it now, but I also think why did I have to stick my neck out like that,” she said.

MBPJ councillor Sean Oon (photo) also expressed concern that this could potentially constitute a violation of the Personal Data Protection Act.

He said he had already approached the MBPJ’s engineering department director, who had signed off on the letter sent to the landowner.

“I asked the director, why have to disclose the complainant’s details?

“His explanation was quite laughable to me. He said she was not complaining about anything personal, she is being a good citizen so we are giving recognition to her by publishing her name,” he said.

Oon said he then questioned, through a message on WhatsApp, whether the council had sought the complainant's permission to reveal her personal information and whether this is MBPJ's SOP.

However, he said, the director did not reply to his message after that.

Malaysiakini has attempted to contact this director and is awaiting his reply.