Nearly all IT leaders say AI accessed sensitive data without permission

Singapore ranks second globally for unauthorised AI data access.

Nearly all Singaporean IT leaders (98.9%) said an AI tool or agent accessed sensitive data beyond its intended scope in the past year, the second-highest rate across eight markets surveyed, according to the 2026 Identity Security Report by Delinea.

The findings draw on two global surveys of 2,254 IT and security leaders and 2,250 non-IT employees at organisations of 500 or more employees that use AI, across the UK, US, Germany, Australia, Singapore, UAE, France and India.

Despite near-universal policy adoption, with 99.6% of Singaporean organisations having a formal policy governing AI data access, enforcement in practice remains thin.

Only 14% of Singaporean IT leaders said they can detect a scope violation as it happens, below the global average of 19%. Some 72% of Singaporean organisations take a full day or longer to catch an out-of-scope access event, the highest globally.

Employee behaviour is compounding the risk. Some 84% of Singaporean employees said they have bypassed the required approval process for using AI at some point, with 51% saying they do so always or regularly.

Three in four said they have felt pressured to use AI on sensitive or confidential data even when they were unsure it was permitted, the third-highest rate globally.

Accountability gaps persist. Whilst 98.8% of Singaporean organisations require named-individual approval for at least some sensitive AI use, just 38% of IT leaders said they can always trace a sensitive access event back to a named human authoriser.

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