What counts
The PDPA defines business contact information as "an individual's name, position name or title, business telephone number, business address, business electronic mail address or business fax number and any other similar information about the individual, not provided by the individual solely for his or her personal purposes" (section 2(1)).
The last part is the test: what matters is why the person gave you the detail, for business or for something personal.
What it's excluded from
"Except where business contact information is expressly mentioned, Parts 3, 4, 5, 6 and 6A do not apply to business contact information" (section 4(5)).
Those parts hold most of the PDPA's data protection rules. These are the ones a seller meets:
| Part | What it covers | Applies to business contact information? |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Consent, purpose and notice | No |
| 5 | Access and correction requests | No |
| 6 | Accuracy, protection and retention | No |
| 6A | Data breach notification | No |
| 9 | The Do Not Call rules | Not excluded by section 4(5). See below |
Name cards
PDPC's guidelines say that "in most circumstances, the Commission is likely to consider personal data provided on business/name cards as business contact information" (Key Concepts guidelines, pages 17 and 18). A card dropped in the bowl at a trade seminar is the classic case.
The same card handed over for a personal reason isn't. A procurement manager who gives you her card at a home fair, because she wants her own flat renovated, gave it for a personal purpose. Her details are personal data for that conversation, and the full PDPA applies.
The Do Not Call rules have their own line
Section 4(5) doesn't mention Part 9, so the Do Not Call rules aren't switched off for business numbers. They have a separate exclusion instead. A message sent "to an organisation other than an individual acting in a personal or domestic capacity, for any purpose of the receiving organisation" isn't a specified message (Eighth Schedule).
PDPC's FAQ puts both halves side by side. "B2B marketing messages are not within the scope of the DNC Registry." But "a marketing message sent to an individual acting in a personal or domestic capacity would not be considered a B2B marketing message, even if the message purports to be for a purpose of an organisation."
Three cases
| You're about to | Inside the PDPA's consent rules? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Email the office manager whose card you scanned at an expo about renovating their office | No | Business contact information, used for the company's purpose |
| WhatsApp the same manager about renovating her own home | Yes | A personal purpose. Her consent and the Do Not Call rules apply |
| Message a sole trader's mobile about their business | It depends | If the number was given for business, it's business contact information. Check what they gave it for |
When it's unclear, treat the details as personal and ask.
From name card to follow-up
The trouble with a stack of name cards is rarely the PDPA. It's that they sit in a drawer until nobody remembers the event.
Palby CRM's card scanner turns a photo of a card into a contact. Check what it read, then save it. Add a Company field and a Title field to your board first, so the scan fills them in. Customers from the same company group onto a company page built from that field, and each one can carry a follow-up date. If a card's owner later becomes a personal customer, record their consent on the same record, channel by channel.
30 minutes. You choose the day and the time.
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Questions about business contact information
A person's name, title, business phone, business address, business email or business fax, and similar details, when they weren't given only for personal purposes.
No. The PDPA's consent, notice, access, protection and breach rules don't apply to it, unless the Act expressly mentions it.
In most circumstances, PDPC says yes. A card given for a personal reason, like a home renovation, isn't.
A message to an organisation for its own purposes is outside the Registry rules. A message to a person in their personal capacity isn't, even if it's sent to a work number.
Sources
- PDPA 2012 s2(1) and s4(5), Part 9 and the Eighth Schedule (sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/PDPA2012, current version as at 2 Nov 2026), read 2 Nov 2026
- PDPC Advisory Guidelines on Key Concepts in the PDPA, revised 29 Apr 2026, pages 17 and 18, read 2 Nov 2026
- PDPC FAQs on the Do Not Call Registry (pdpc.gov.sg), read 2 Nov 2026