Tackling Online Scams

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs (a) how can the Ministry encourage victims of online credit card fraud, unauthorised access to email accounts, phishing scams and identity thefts to report such crimes; (b) whether the Ministry will set up a national fraud reporting and Internet crime reporting centre; and (c) whether efforts can be stepped up to raise the awareness on how individuals and businesses can protect themselves against cybercrime.

Thank you. For the six-month period between January and June 2014, there were 787 reported online cheating and cyber extortion cases. In the same period in 2013, there were 187 such cases. The rise in the number of police reports could be partly due to greater public awareness and willingness to report such crimes.

A key strategy to reduce the number of online crimes is to raise public awareness and vigilance. To this end, the Police have worked with the community and key stakeholders to increase public education of online crimes through mainstream and social media. For example, Police have highlighted cases of online purchase and identity theft scams in the upcoming episodes of CrimeWatch this year. The Police and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) have jointly developed public education collaterals pertaining to online crimes for display on bus stop panels, at MRT stations and over the Internet, including online forums and shopping sites. Police are also working with major financial institutions to feature crime prevention advisories on their Internet banking websites by end-2014.

Members of the public are encouraged to contact the Police immediately should they become victims of any crime, be it online or otherwise. This can be done through existing crime reporting channels, such as the Neighbourhood Police Centres (NPCs) and Neighbourhood Police Posts (NPPs), as well as Police's online reporting portal.

Page: 33

I thank the Senior Minister of State for the comprehensive reply. With more people using the Internet, including the vulnerable elderly, it is quite understandable that more online crime could be expected. At times, online crimes call for a different computer skillset to trace the culprit and collect online evidence, and some of the current investigating officers may not have the skill-set. So, what kind of training plans do the Police have to equip Police officers with such cyber skills to crack cybercrimes? Is there a plan to set up a dedicated cybercrime unit in the Police Force? For cyber criminals who are based overseas or use overseas websites, how are the Police enlisting the help of Interpol to crack such cross-border cybercrimes?

I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. Firstly, certainly, this is a very new phenomenon in our society, where because of the "ubiquitousness" of the Internet, multimedia devices are all over the place, sometimes even at our dinner table, this is now a means and access for criminals to perpetrate their crimes. Therefore, our own forces in the Police have had to upgrade themselves to understand the nature of these crimes and how they are perpetrated, including working with their foreign counterparts. As the Member rightly pointed out, this is not a crime just perpetrated within Singapore. Indeed, most of them have been perpetrated overseas. Therefore, we have to work regionally as well as internationally, including with INTERPOL, who have just set up their INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) recently in Singapore. With INTERPOL and all these regional counterparts, we hope to address these issues together.

Thank you, Madam. On a regular basis, many Internet users face phishing attacks from cyber criminals who seek to steal personal credit and banking information, and some fall prey to the scams. Not all victims report it because of the perception that our law enforcement agencies can do little, especially if the phishing attacks seem to come from overseas accounts. I have three supplementary questions.

First, are our existing laws and our investigative processes evolving fast enough to deal with cybercrimes that cross national boundaries, and is the Police actively gathering data and transforming them into actionable intelligence that can lead to the capture of cyber criminals?

Second, can the Ministry encourage victims to report cybercrime not only through the regular channels available now, but also by providing a central point of contact for information on Internet fraud – where they can go to, to report on any attacks that they may have on the Internet and to also provide updates on the latest phishing websites and scams so as to warn online users?

Finally, is the Police enlisting the help of Internet security experts to tackle this threat of cybercrime and to work with institutions that are often targeted, such as the banks, online

Page: 34

trading platforms and the various organisations, to better protect themselves against cyberattacks?

The first question on whether existing laws are adequate, yes, they are. We do, however, need to continue monitoring and updating them, as these kinds of crimes do evolve over time. In the past, there was no such crime of extorting people through the Internet. But now, there are such crimes. And the victims may be in Singapore but the perpetrators may be overseas. Certainly, the best approach is prevention. The victims themselves are the people who are using all these media. They must be always aware that they can be victims of cybercrime.

Are there efforts to collect data and transform them into actionable plans? Yes, there are. This is continual, as I have mentioned before. We work together with international organisations like INTERPOL to make sure that we have a bigger global view of the issue, and not just what is happening in Singapore.

Should we have other channels to allow people to make reports? Well, we are mindful that we do not want to create more channels even though it may be particularly for online scams or Internet cybercrime. There are already existing ones through our NPCs, through our NPPs; even online reporting that our citizens and our visitors can assess.

Do we work with experts? Yes, we do. In fact, they regularly come to advise us, we also invite them to run workshops with our regular police forces, as well as to involve other police forces in other countries to ensure that we are working together and on the same page. It also heightens our awareness of the vulnerability of our citizens to this new crime.

And then, there is a cybersecurity awareness alliance which comprises 21 representatives from the Government and private enterprises, including even trade associations and non-profit organisations. What they are doing is they are trying to promote and enhance awareness to adopt essential Infocomm Security practices so that it is not just being done at the individual basis but also in companies, in any other set-ups that involve the use of IT. Currently, this is co-chaired by the Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecoms & Post) of Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and the Vice-Chairman of Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation. The Police is part of this initiative.