'Do right by your users': Sun Xueling criticises Meta for not doing enough to fight Facebook scams

SINGAPORE: Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling on Thursday (Feb 29) called out Meta's lack of cooperation with the Singapore government when it came to combatting scams.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has "consistently pushed back" against the Ministry of Home Affairs' (MHA) recommendations to put in place safeguards against scams on the social media platform, Ms Sun told parliament.

These recommendations include verifying users against government-issued IDs and offering a secured payment option for Marketplace users.

A total of 9,783 e-commerce scams were reported in Singapore last year, more than double the 4,762 cases the year before, with victims losing a combined S$13.9 million (US$10.3 million). Close to half of the scams were on Facebook, said Ms Sun.

Facebook is the only platform in the E-commerce Marketplace Transaction Safety Ratings (TSR) that has not implemented, or started to implement, recommended safety features.

"As a result, Facebook Marketplace was ranked the lowest in the TSR for the second consecutive year," she said.

The TSR rates popular e-commerce platforms on their measures to safeguard users against scams. Facebook has a safety rating of one tick, compared with platforms like Amazon, Lazada and Qoo10 which have the highest rating of four ticks.

Platforms like Shopee and Carousell, on the other hand, are working with the Home Affairs Ministry and the police to fight scams, she pointed out.

For example, Shopee introduced verification features in December 2022 where sellers were required to verify their identities against government records. Scams reported on the e-commerce platform fell 71 per cent between 2021 and 2023 as a result, she said.

"I urge Meta to step up, to do right by your users," Ms Sun said.

ANTI-SCAM WEBSITE

Ms Sun was speaking in parliament about Singapore’s war against scams as the Home Affairs Ministry laid out its spending plans for this year after a debate on the Budget. 

The plans include a "one-stop portal" later this year on scams for members of the public to turn to for information and seek support.

Anti-scam resources will be consolidated on the website, including advice on what someone should do if they think they have fallen for a scam.

This comes as scams continue to be the main driver of crime in Singapore. In 2023, victims lost S$651.8 million (US$484 million) in a record 46,563 cases – the highest annual figure since the police began tracking scams in 2016.

Job scams were the top type of fraud that people fell for, followed by e-commerce scams, fake friend call scams, phishing scams and investment scams. 

Those aged under 50 made up almost three-quarters of the total number of victims.

She noted that the 2023 statistics showed where Singapore’s weaknesses are and where further work needs to be done. The rise in scams was largely due to social engineering and deception, where victims were tricked into transferring money to fraudsters.

“As individuals, our 'optimism bias' leads us to mistakenly believe that we will not be deceived,” Ms Sun said.

“We may also let our guard down, making us vulnerable to our inherent human desire to be loved, to make an extra buck, to seize an attractive-looking offer. This is why even younger Singaporeans, who are generally more digitally savvy, fall prey to scams.”

Aside from what to do and how to protect oneself from scams, the website will lay out the latest scam trends and provide information for victims on where to seek support.

For instance, the police can deploy volunteer victim care officers to look into these victims’ needs. The officers can then direct them to community and professional resources for psychological and financial support.

Ms Sun also announced that the government is studying additional measures "to better protect unwitting members of the public", including those who refuse to believe they are being scammed.

She did not provide more details.

“(These victims) could be victims of love scams or investment scams where they have invested affection or significant amounts of monies, making it difficult for them to extract themselves from the situation,” she added.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs will propose new offences next month to deter the misuse of local SIM cards for scams and other criminal activities.

This is because more scammers are using Singapore SIM cards to make scam calls and send SMSes, to bypass the blocking of overseas calls.

The police recently announced that from Apr 15, people will only be able to purchase and register a maximum of 10 post-paid SIM cards. This comes after such SIM cards, which are predominantly bought by locals, have been increasingly misused for scam purposes.

Pre-paid SIM cards have usually been of concern, with people still only being allowed to buy a maximum of three pre-paid cards today.

Ms Sun added that the ScamShield app will also be enhanced to improve the accuracy of scam SMS detection and to allow users to more easily report scams.

POLICE MANPOWER CONSTRAINTS 

Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam spoke about how the number of police investigation officers (IOs) who deal with scams has not been able to keep up with the rapid jump in cases.

He said that many cases are complex and require investigators to “pursue more evidential areas than before”.

While the number of reported scams has gone up six-fold since 2018, the number of IOs dealing with scams has only increased by about 11 per cent. Mr Shanmugam called this a “significant gap”.

“Police is already a very lean outfit. With the increase in cases, our IOs are increasingly even more overstretched and overworked, and it will not be sustainable for them to continue cancelling their leave days, covering extra duty shifts, and so on.”

The Home Affairs Ministry is tackling this by trying to automate and streamline investigation work processes where possible, Mr Shanmugam added.

The ministry is also working closely with the relevant government agencies to see if it can get additional resourcing support for the police's investigation fraternity.

Mr Shanmugam noted that police have looked at prioritising the areas with the most pressing needs as well, such as the investigation of scams and sexual offences.

“We are looking to channel more resources towards them. But, on the flip side, this also naturally means there will be some other areas where work will be deprioritised. These are the trade-offs.”

MAINTENANCE OF RACIAL HARMONY ACT

Mr Shanmugam also briefly talked about his ministry’s plans to introduce a new racial harmony law in parliament later this year.

The Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act was first raised by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2021 after some racist incidents that year, as well as discussions on the ground about race relations in Singapore.

Mr Shanmugam said on Thursday that the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Bill will “consolidate the government’s powers to deal with racial issues, and strengthen our suite of powers to preserve racial harmony”.

“We will also introduce softer reparative measures, which would seek to help the aggrieved community take a more reconciliatory view towards an offender and strengthen mutual understanding between races,” he added.