National Anti-Scam Roadshow - Speech by Mr Goh Pei Ming, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs & Ministry of Social and Family Development

Introduction

1. A very good morning to everyone. I am very happy to see such great turnout here at Toa Payoh HDB Hub. How is everyone doing this morning? This is our very first National Anti-Scam Roadshow. And the reason why we are doing this is because scams are becoming a huge national issue, and it is important for us to do a lot more public outreach, to work together with members of public, everyone, to help tackle and bring down this issue of scams.

The Continuing Scam Challenge

2. Many of us here today would have come across scams, one way or another, maybe your family member, friend or even yourself, have been a victim of scams.

3. Within the first half of this year alone, there have been more than 19,000 reported scam cases, almost 20,000 reported scam cases, and they may be other cases which are not reported, and total losses come to more than $450 million dollars. This may be a slight decrease from a year ago, but the numbers, both in terms of number of scam cases as well as the amount of monies lost, are still very, very significant, and of great concern to the Government and I am sure all members of public here are worried as well.

4. The Government has worked tirelessly to roll out many anti-scam measures. Just this week, in Parliament, we passed a new bill to ensure that scam perpetrators, the penalties for scam perpetrators have been raised. We have introduced caning to deter scam perpetrators in a bid for us to make sure the amount of perpetrators go down, and the cases involved go down. We have typically only reserved caning for the most serious of crimes, and therefore by imposing caning for scams, this shows how seriously we are taking this issue nationally, and that we will not let scammers, we will not let mules, continue what they have been doing. We will not tolerate this.

5. But apart from tough laws, we have also introduced various additional anti-scam measures to help tackle this problem. Since 1 July last year, we have implemented a “gov.sg” SMS sender ID. This will help members of public more easily identify official, genuine, government SMS communications to members of public and help protect all of us against government officials impersonation scams. We also work with various online platforms to implement upstream measures, and one example is the introduction of Codes of Practice under the Online Criminal Harms Act. And this Code of Practice now requires designated service providers to implement measures on their platforms, their systems, to protect their users, which is all of us Singaporeans, from scams and malicious cyber activities.

Need for Whole-of-Society Effort

6. But no matter how robust, no matter how pervasive government measures can be, they will only be effective when all of us, members of public, continue to stay vigilant, protect ourselves and protect our loved ones from scams.

7. Another statistic I will share - today, about 4 in 5 scams, about 80%, are self-effected, which means the monies that we lose are actually transferred by ourselves. We willingly transfer these monies. The scammer uses psychological tactics to deceive, to manipulate the victims into compliance, and typically the victim ends up transferring money willingly to the bank account of the scammer, into their accounts and very quickly, these monies are transferred overseas. This also means that many of the cases are self-effected, we need to take more action to protect ourselves.

8. The first defence starts with ourselves. Anyone, we must recognise that anyone can fall prey to scams, and this is why the Government has undertaken many public education efforts, such as the “I Can ACT Against Scams” campaign and we hope to empower everyone to stay alert, to exercise healthy scepticism especially when something looks too good to be true, to protect all of us, especially our loved ones as well.

We Can ACT Against Scams Roadshow

9. So, today, we are here at the “We Can Act” scams roadshow and this is designed to achieve this public education effort. As all of us later walk across all the various booths, I hope you will learn more about the various scam types, you will learn what makes us vulnerable, and how criminals have been using these tactics to deceive us into supporting scam activities.

10. Amongst the booths, you will see a “Red Flag Railway” interactive panel. You will see how scammers entice individuals to become money mules. You will also experience what happens when someone goes through a potential investment scam, what you will experience when you encounter a government officials impersonation scam. And these are key scam types that many Singaporeans have fallen prey to. They remind us how scams can be very convincing and we must all stop and check when we are unsure if something is a scam, by calling the ScamShield Helpline at 1799 to verify, make sure that it is an official source before we actually transfer monies.

11. I hope to urge everyone besides yourselves, please help spread the word to families, friends, to visit this roadshow, to learn how we can all become more scam resilient. Your simple act of sharing this information with another friend, another person, we just need a critical action to help prevent the next scam from taking place, to help a friend from losing potentially their lifesavings. And if they cannot make it this weekend, we have three other roadshows coming up that the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), and the Police will be organising throughout this and next month. So, please encourage more to join the roadshows.

Recognising Our Partners

12. Today, I am also pleased to present tokens of appreciation to various partners who have stepped up to support our "I can ACT Against Scams" campaign. Some are large organisations, some are grassroots community groups, but all, all, have stepped forward to help educate fellow Singaporeans on scams. This is what building a strong community spirit and having a strong community spirit and cooperation looks like. This is exactly what helps us get through difficult times.

13. I wish to thank all government agencies, partners, volunteers, many of whom have taken their precious time over the weekend to be here today, to help make today's roadshow possible. Your efforts demonstrate that with shared responsibility, we can build a Singapore that is resilient against scams.

Conclusion

14. Now today as we explore the roadshow together, do remember that this is not just about increasing awareness – it is also about taking action to enhance our scams resilience and increase our community vigilance, our community preparedness in this fight against scams. I encourage each and every one of you to bring back the knowledge to your families and friends.

15. Now, before I conclude, let me do some promotion here and promote the ScamShield Suite – here are three simple actions that you can take to better protect yourself against scams. So, I urge everyone to follow these three steps.

(a) First, add 1799 to your contact list. I say again, add 1799 to your phone contact list. This is our ScamShield helpline. If you are unsure if something is a scam, you can call this number. It is 24/7. You can call to check, whether an email, whether an SMS, whether a phone call you received is genuine or not. So, please scan the QR code and get the number on your phone.

(b) Second, you can also download the ScamShield mobile application. This can help you block scam calls and detect suspicious messages sent to your mobile devices. There has been more than 1.3 million downloads of the ScamShield mobile app and I hope a lot more Singaporeans will continue to follow suit. Please download, scan the QR code, and download the mobile application.

(c) Now third, I hope that members of public can also join the ScamShield Alert Social Channel on WhatsApp to stay updated on the latest scam trends, the latest scam techniques, so that you know what to look out for, for yourself and your loved ones. So once again, the QR code is there. Please scan the QR code to join the WhatsApp Channel on ScamShield.

16. So, together, let’s all work together, to ACT, - A C T - Act, Check, Tell against scams and I hope everyone has an enjoyable, educational and meaningful morning today at this road show. Thank you very much.