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Bertha HarianBertha Harian

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Privacy and the poor

I don’t suppose many people would object to the extension of the casino ban to the “financially vulnerable”. So another 15,000 will be added to the No Entry list, including those who couldn’t pay up the rent on their flats. One thing that has always puzzled me: So the two casinos get a whole list of names and then checks each entrant against some computer spreadsheet? I don’t know about you, but if I were a ComCare receipient or am temporarily unable to pay my rent, I wouldn’t want too many people to know about it. I mean its okay to have self-exclusion or third-party exclusion for gambling addicts, and undischarged bankrupts who should really pay their creditors first, but the “financially vulnerable”? What’s happened to privacy?

Minister Chan Chun Sing says the target isn’t the lower income. Odd. If so, those on Public Assistance shouldn’t be on the original ban list… He describes the new group as those who show “initial signs of financial strain”. If it’s “initial”, let them get over it then. If they gamble and get into deeper debt, let a social worker or family members add them to the exclusion list. Why does the Government have to be a nanny?

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An ex-journalist who can't get enough of the news after being in the business for 26 years

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