Milipol Asia Pacific-TechX Summit 2024 – Speech by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law

Your Excellency, Mr Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior and Overseas, France

My colleague, Josephine Teo

Deputy Ministers

Parliamentarians

Excellencies, Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

1. Welcome to this Milipol Asia Pacific-TechX Summit. The very first edition - it is being organised by our HTX and our French partner, Civipol.

2. I will speak to you a little about HTX and this event. But let me first set out what’s the context in which this event is being held. If you look at Southeast Asia, and the economic conditions now and projecting over the next five years - leave out China which is already the second largest economy in the world; India to the west, which is in a few years will be the third largest economy in the world. Between those two and of course, Japan, now third largest economy in the world, but soon in a few years, will be the fourth.

3. Just take the 10 countries of ASEAN - if you take the GDPs of these 10 countries, ASEAN is now probably the fourth, certainly no lower than the third largest economy in the world; in fact, $4 trillion, and slightly more. And you have Australia, which is a G20 country, slightly under $2 trillion GDP. So you look at ASEAN and Australia, as one large area. This is going to grow economically and growing at about 5% conservatively. What this means is over the next five to seven years, economic opportunities will explode. There'll be a lot more infrastructure. There's travelling that’s going to really skyrocket, even more than what is happening now.

4. All this would be very good for this region. But at the same time, it does mean more problems for our kind of agencies – for the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Interior, border police – because we will be expected to do much more with the same amount of resources, or maybe marginally increased resources. How are we going to do it? I just give you a snapshot of what they call revenge travel. The long weekend that just passed, we have half a million people who tried to cross from Singapore into Malaysia through the Causeway – 500,000 people within a period of x number of hours and everyone expects to cross within a matter of minutes. How do you manage this? And that’s the context in which I am going to talk about HTX. Because it is a problem that I think we are going to face, all of us are going to face, and will face.

Setup of HTX

5. Our Ministry, Ministry of Home Affairs in Singapore, Ministry of Interior, are usually responsible for several major departments: Police, Immigration, Prisons, Civil Defence, and Civil Defence would include disaster relief, firefighting, emergency services, and many other agencies.

6. And all these agencies increasingly rely, more and more on technology. We decided in Singapore, that what we needed to make ourselves more effective, is that we have to make all these departments talk to each other much more, and make them aligned, and really bring the technology teams together and force them to work together. So you’re going to need a very strong central Ministry that can basically direct this.

7. In 2019, five years ago, we took a major step, huge step. We brought together the engineers, the tech people, the applied scientists, technicians, everyone from all these different agencies and put them into a single agency - the HTX.  HTX was given an ambitious mandate.

8. First, focus on R&D – on areas that are relevant across the fields of homeland security: biometrics, smart sensors, robotics, many more and make it transformative.

9. Second, integrate the different capabilities, knowledge, resources, which are already present, and look elsewhere in the world for what else they can bring in, put them all together and make the different agencies work with each other seamlessly.

10. Third, build stronger networks both within Singapore, and internationally. The problems we face are the problems that everyone faces. So let’s learn from others, and work with partners in the tech and R&D space.

Key Capabilities That HTX Invests in

11. So if you look at the five years since – when they briefed me, I sit back and say, how could we have done without them? That's how effective they've been. In the period of five years, HTX has delivered much for Singapore in the fields I mentioned – robotics, biometric sensors.

12. Let me give you some examples: If we look at Robotics and Unmanned Systems – HTX has developed a number of different types of robots, from big ones to small little cyborg cockroaches - all of them equipped with sensors. They have enhanced our ability to do patrol and security operations by developing drones which operate beyond visual line-of-sight.

13. And increasingly, the threats start from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosives - they have worked out how we deal with this. Everyone does this, but it's a question of the level, and the competence, and the best in class and how you integrate. And for us, that includes a network of laboratories at our border checkpoints to help our agencies detect various substances. There is also an island-wide network now, of hazardous gas sensors which can quickly detect abnormal gases, for example, in gas leaks.

14. And there are many more areas. They include operations centres integrated across different agencies; video systems for members of public to livestream what they see to operations rooms when calling for emergency assistance; video analytics

to be used in cameras in prisons so that we can reduce the number of prisons officers.

15. And in terms of forensics, 3D Laser Scanners for crime scene documentation, DNA Phenotyping Lab-on-Chip technology to identify unique forensic markers.

16. And in terms of support systems, we are working on using tools like predictive analytics and AI to keep our buildings, computers and devices, weapons, vehicles, and vessels operating at optimal performance, and even before problems arise to identify when a problem may arise – so that maintenance becomes much easier.

Leveraging AI in Homeland Security

17. In this context, let me say something on AI.

18. AI is a challenge all of us are grappling with. It is changing the way we work and play.

19. If you look at our homeland security, we use AI to help fight crimes.

20. Last year, the US Customs and Border Protection detected an attempt to smuggle 75 kilogrammes of narcotics from Mexico into California. It was done with AI, to identify suspicious patterns in a car’s history of crossing the border.

21. In Singapore, we are trying to do the same. Video analytics in our network of Police Cameras – by 2030, there will be more than 200,000 of them across the island to deter, detect and solve crimes faster.

22. We also use AI to secure our borders, provide better services, and our Immigration and Checkpoints Authority uses AI in their Multi Modal Biometric Scanning technology to check a traveller’s biometrics with our automated border control system.

23. From the second half of this year, all foreign visitors, non-Singaporeans, we are hoping they will be able to use automated lanes for immigration clearance at our air, land and sea checkpoints.

24. So even a foreign traveller – doesn’t have to register beforehand and will be able to leave Singapore, walkthrough without presenting their passports. If we achieve that, we will be the first in the world to have done it.

25. By 2026, we plan to have enough automated lanes to clear 95% of all our travellers. We are not doing it alone, we work with foreign companies. For example, I told Minister that in this area we are working closely with French companies who have helped us a lot.

26. And at our land checkpoints, with Malaysia, travellers in cars can also use QR codes instead of passports, for faster and more convenient immigration clearance.

27. And such technology will lead to real benefits. We expect that overall waiting times can be reduced by more than 30% once most of the car travellers use the QR code. The land checkpoint between Malaysia and Singapore is one of the busiest in the world, and we are hoping to cut the clearance time to a matter of seconds.

Strengthening International Partnerships and Collaboration

28. I am sharing all this, in the hope that we can work together in technology development with everyone, because the borderless nature of tech-enabled crimes requires solutions that go beyond borders.

29. The way we have integrated is one model - it may work for a smaller country, but others will find their own solutions. But some such solution is going to be necessary, I think, for most countries in this region, and avenues like MAP-TXS – these sorts of fora, great way of bringing together different stakeholders in science and technology, and homeland security sector to share experiences and best practices.

30. For decades, the French Ministry of Interior has shown far-sightedness in organising the Milipol network of events, which brings together global law enforcement communities, to collaborate on technology for homeland security. It is a good step forward, that HTX and Civipol are jointly organising this event.

31. I am glad that Minister Darmanin is able to join us today. France has been a very valuable and supportive partner, together with our other partners in this region. And besides making this event possible, we are collaborating, as I said earlier, with French companies and French Ministry of Interior - on a range of projects in border security, command and control systems, and biometrics and profiling.

32. My own view is that it is important to build a strong ecosystem between the Government, industry, and academia.

33. These partnerships will create opportunities for us to tap on each other’s expertise and sharpen our capabilities to be at the forefront of innovation.

34. Over the next three days of MAP-TXS, HTX will also be formalising agreements, instruments, collaborations with nine different partners from Government, industry and academia.

35. The very strong turnout today: more than 1800 attendees from over 29 countries, demonstrates a clear desire for the homeland security community to work together.

36. I look forward to seeing more collaborations and partnerships that will allow all of us, not just Singapore Government but between and amongst you, to exponentially impact, in a positive way, the safety and security of this region.

37. Thank you everyone.