How Do The Stars Of Ch 8 Drama Old Is Gold Safeguard Their Mobile Phones?

As a result of the Ian Fang-Carrie Wong leaked DMs scandal, the issue of mobile phone security has become a hot topic. We spoke to the stars of Ch 8’s latest drama Old is Gold, which revolves around a nursing home run by Rui En, to find out just how conscientious they are when it comes to safeguarding their mobile phones.

Photos: Alvin Teo/ 8days.sg

Old is Gold debuts Tuesday, May 28, 7.30pm on Ch 8. You can also catch it first on Toggle now.

“I think you’re absolutely going to have a heart attack (laughs). I didn’t have a password to lock my phone until recently. I know it’s shocking but I just felt like it was such a hassle! I just set a password the other day in front of Chantalle (Ng) and Edwin (Goh) and to me, it’s a big deal! I’m very proud of myself! [Ed: We ask if she has ever lost her phone] Oh, never. I’m very anal about this. I know when my phone is not around. I’m that obsessive about it. Like my phone is literally in my hand or in front of me. I don’t set it down when I’m out. And if I do, I’m very aware of where it is, like I would put it in a place where I can see it. [Ed: But has she ever panicked ’cos she thought she had lost her phone?] Thank God, no! Touch wood? It’s alright lah. It’s locked now (laughs).”
- Jonathan Fam

“Even though my phone is not with me now, I know it’s with my manager. And there’s a password locking the phone too. Essentially, I won’t leave my phone unprotected and I don’t share my password. But I don’t really think about such things too ’cos I’m not active when it comes to social media.”

“I don’t do anything special. I just use normal passwords. But I always double protect my accounts, you know where you have to verify your account if you’re logging in from another device. I use also use different passwords, like my full address (laughs). I’m kidding lah!”

“Honestly speaking, I feel the safest thing to do is to not have Instagram and Facebook. I still don’t have either of those two things.”

“So you know I study Information Systems, right? And so I learned how vulnerable your security can be online and it made me very paranoid. I have a very strong password but even then, I change it very regularly, like once every few months. And I refuse to share it with brands, my manager, even my mum. Once a brand asked if they can get my Instagram password so they can go into my account and promote a post, and I didn’t give. I also have a habit of deleting really sensitive messages after sending them. Oh, also don’t anyhow click on links online. Those that ask you to change your password. There’s a lot of such links going around nowadays. I almost got tricked recently. I received an email which said that I have to change my password by this date. Luckily I entered the wrong password (laughs).But I shouldn’t say so much lah, later I kena hacked (laughs).”

“I feel like it’s very hard to protect yourself. But you can’t leave your phone unsupervised either way. Instagram now has a two-step verification process which I use, but it also doesn’t mean I am 100% protected. I also hold on to my phone all the time but I have nothing to hide lah. A few months ago, I had a lot of people pretending to be me on Facebook and Instagram. They made their accounts look like my official one. All my fans, and even my friends and family all thought it was my actual account so that made me worried. I made a report and they were all taken down.”

“I always tell my friends, if you see anything ‘special’ online, don’t send to me. You remember that happening Korean group chat? For people in my generation, like all my old friends, when they see something special, like people fighting in public, they put it on the group chat. But when I see it, I will delete it. I always tell them, don’t send to me. If they do the first time, I will call them to remind them. If they send me something else a second time, I will block them.”