If CTOS goes, so must ex-conviction records
The public accusation saga on the so-called illegality of operations of Credit Tip Off Service Sdn Bhd (also known as CTOS) continues. After I wrote about the presence of Wilfully Blinded Politicians in our midst, the tit for tat between the government and CTOS continues.
The Chief Executive Officer of CTOS revealed that entities linked to Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk M. Kayveas has used CTOS’s services before (as far back as 1999 with documentary proof of the work done). He also issued a further statement that CTOS is not a blacklist. Rather, it is merely a database of public records. CTOS collects data from the public domain eg. legal notices in newspapers, court papers and legal searches and puts them all into one single place. For a fee, one can search through this data for historical records on whether a person was the subject of legal proceedings. What is does not represent is the outcome of the legal proceedings. It nevertheless, rightfully, records that there was such a legal proceeding which took place.
Why financial institutions love this piece of data from CTOS is the convenience. It is a one-stop centre. For otherwise, financial institutions would have to create their own database and or spend more money conducting searches through various agencies on the legal history of an applicant for a financial product.
The hoo-haa about CTOS being the REASON for the inability of applicants to get loans and or other financial products by virtue of having a legal history recorded in CTOS is, with respect, looking at the wrong issue at hand. The reason for the inability of applicants to get loans is due to the inability of financial institutions to look beyond the legal history of the applicants. Legal history cannot be erased much like a previous conviction cannot be erased. The fact that a person was sued for defaulting in a housing loan 10 years ago is the same as the fact that a person was jailed for 3 years for shoplifting. Both set of facts are indisputable and historical.
The issue is, whether the financial institution is prepared to look beyond the history. The loan defaulter may have since had a turn-around in his financial position and is now commanding a healthy income. Or perhaps, he had fully paid up the defaulting loan by way of a reconstruction of the loan repayment scheme. Likewise, the shoplifter may have completed his jail term with a shorter term instead as he was a model prisoner. Will the financial institution now look at the current status of the loan defaulter? Or perhaps, by analogy, will a prospective employer look into the fact that the shoplifter has fully served his term? What really, is the difference in the two? None to me, unless you wish to discriminate between a civil breach and a criminal breach and argue that a criminal breach ought to have the records forever but not a civil breach.
If there is a gripe, it should be targetted towards the financial institutions for not being able to look beyond the legal history of an applicant for financial products. That is the real issue. Otherwise, convicts who have served their terms ought to ask the Honourable Datuk M. Kayveas to ensure that their previous convictions (to which they have served their penal term fully) be erased from records as it is harmful to their prospects of gaining employment much like the CTOS database is harmful to applicants in getting a financial product.
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