tomtomtom wrote:Never though ICA involving external agencies to do background checks?
Funny, I thought this was pretty common knowledge. But it's not just ICA or SG, I used to work for a bank and if we were approached by a wealthy prospective client to open an account, a part of the vetting might include running background checks on them to ensure the provenance of their wealth was clean. The logic was that if say we didn't do so and we took the client on, and it later turned out it was black-money, the potentially cataclysmal PR was a far greater reputational loss than what ever might have earned from them in fees.
The threshold for such checks depended on the place of birth and citizenship of the 'prospect'. By way of example the states that make up the former Soviet Union were candidates with lower-end thresholds; but every nationality had a hurdle set somewhere where these checks were triggered. We used a company called Sandline International, who might be best remembered for the activities of their mercenary division
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandline_International
That's got me wondering. If you didn't know that, do you know that all telephone calls in SG have been remotely screened for a list of key-words, that send up red-flags, for over 20 years now? I won't list examples, as I'm sure websites these days are monitored for the same... just think of common words associated with crime, terrorism, narcotics and so on...
... makes you wonder what the gahmen do with the data from all those NTUC 'prize draw' entry tickets. They must know the daily dietary habits of just about every individual in SG... same re: prescription/controlled medicines...