Singapore passes law cracking down on online content in scams, malicious cyber activity

The new legislation grants authorities the power to issue social media platforms and internet service providers different types of directions to stop malicious activity

The government can also take pre-emptive measures such as blocking orders for suspicious apps to be removed from app stores

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Singapore’s new legislation targets a range of illicit activities including online scams, terrorism, and use of online platforms for drug trafficking. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 8:56pm, 5 Jul 2023

Singapore’s parliament on Wednesday greenlit the latest of the country’s suite of planned new legislation targeting online crimes, this time tackling the worsening scourge of digital scams that governments around the world have begun cracking down on.

Apart from scams, the Online Criminal Harms Bill also targets illicit activities such as terrorism, use of online platforms for drug trafficking and spread of exploitative or voyeuristic images.

The legislature, dominated by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party (PAP), passed the law by a voice vote, with no dissent recorded as the main opposition Workers’ Party indicated it backed the law.

The legislation follows the recent enactment of an anti-fake news law, legislation targeting foreign interference – including via digital platforms – and a separate online safety law passed last year. The government has said these new laws are necessary to tackle crime in the era of the internet and social media.

Given the PAP’s legislative supermajority, the laws, starting with the anti-fake news law in 2019, have passed with relative ease despite some domestic critics’ concern about the impact they may have on civil liberties.

In contrast, Western nations including Britain – which is currently deliberating the introduction of an online safety law – have had to water down their version of these laws to assuage rights proponents.

Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Second Minister for Home Affairs, noted that Britain – along with the European Union, Germany and Australia – was among countries planning to introduce new laws targeting criminal harms online, adding that the plans served as “useful references”.

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