Amendments to the Public Order Act to Take Effect on 1 October 2017

The amendments to the Public Order Act, which were passed in Parliament on 3 April 2017, will take effect on 1 October 2017.

2.   With the amendments, all event organisers are required to notify the Police if they reasonably expect more than the following number of persons to attend the event:

• 5,000 persons at any point in time for public events; or

• 10,000 persons at any point in time for private events.

3.     All event organisers whose events meet the above criteria must notify the Police at least 28 days before the event is held, via the LicenceONE platform ( http://licence1.business.gov.sg ).[1] It will be an offence not to do so; in particular, notifying the Police only less than 28 days before the event will be an offence. This requirement to notify the Police will apply to events held on or after 29 October 2017.

4.     The amendments will also empower the Commissioner of Police, after assessing the risk of a terror attack or public disorder, to declare any event as a Special Event. This will then allow the Police to issue directions to the event organiser to ensure that appropriate security measures are put in place.  It will be an offence if the organisers do not implement the security measures as required by the Police. In such circumstances, the Police can also put in place the necessary security measures themselves, and recover the costs of doing so from the organisers.

5.     For more information on how to notify the Police, and the type of security measures that will generally be required of Special Events, event organisers can refer to the set of FAQs and the step-by-step notification guide which will be available on the Police website.

[1] The electronic form to provide a Notice of Intention to Organise an Event will be available on 1 October 2017 on the LicenceONE platform.