Parliament passes law targeting online content used for scams, malicious cyber activity
The debate covered what the Online Criminal Harms Act would mean for e-commerce platforms and how the law would apply to harmful online activities perpetrated from overseas.
SINGAPORE: Parliament on Wednesday (Jul 5) passed a new law that targets online content used to facilitate scams and malicious cyber activities.
The Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA) allows the government to order the takedown of websites, apps and online accounts suspected to be used for criminal activities.
The threshold for ordering a takedown is lower for a particular category of criminal offences – scams and malicious cyber activities.
Scams unfold at great speed and scale and inflict great harm on victims, said Minister for Communications and Information and Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo.
"The threshold to issue directions should therefore be lower than for the other specified criminal offences," she told parliament.
For scams and malicious cyber activities, directions can be issued "when there is suspicion or reason to believe that any online activity is being carried out in preparation for or as part of the commission" of such offences.
The directions may order a person or an online service to stop communicating specified online content, disable the content from being viewed, stop an account from communicating, block access to a web domain, or remove an app from an app store for Singapore users.
OCHA also covers other offences that "affect national security, national harmony, and individual safety, and which have an online nexus", said Mrs Teo.
These include offences related to harmony between different races and religions, sexual offences like child abuse and voyeuristic material, and harassment, among others.
For those offences, directions can only be issued if there is "reasonable suspicion" that an offence has already been committed, and that the online activity facilitated it.
Nine Members of Parliament (MPs), including Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, rose to speak on the law, raising questions about its implementation and its application overseas.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR ONLINE PLATFORMS
Illustrating what OCHA’s application could look like, Mrs Teo said a blank website with a domain resembling that of a legitimate bank could be taken down if there is reasonable suspicion that it will be used to spoof the bank.
“But I also must caution members against becoming overly comforted by (this),” she said. “These websites can be spun in the millions … As much as the police would like to be able to shut them down, I must caution that we do not expect that they will all be eliminated.”
Under the new law, codes of practice for online service providers will set out outcomes that they are required to meet. The codes will be developed in consultation with the service providers and updated periodically.
MPs asked for more detail on what these codes would look like. Mr Singh and Mr Melvin Yong (PAP-Radin Mas) specifically asked how they would apply to e-commerce websites, where scams can be perpetrated.
Mrs Teo said that the codes of practice can apply to e-commerce websites. Requirements could be imposed for such sites to have a seller verification process, and to confirm that the customer has received a product before payment is released to the purported seller.
Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim (PAP-Chua Chu Kang) asked how the government will ensure that OCHA will not be used to restrict free speech or legitimate content.
Mrs Teo said the Act applies only to online activity that already constitutes a criminal offence in Singapore, and does not create new criminal offences in respect of free speech.
She also said that the government will "strike an appropriate balance" between privacy and the prevention of online criminal harms.
"For example, this Bill will not require online companies to break end-to-end encryption in private messaging. However, to come back to crime, we can issue directions to the messaging platform to restrict the accounts which are being used to commit the crime," she said.
"We may also require information on the suspected offenders and other platform users involved in order to fully investigate the case."
The law also provides for appeals against directions, the designations of online service providers, and the application and content of the codes of practice.
"Notwithstanding the legal position of the codes of practice, we have provided in the Bill that persons acting reasonably to comply with the codes of practice will not incur civil and criminal liability," she said.
HOW THE LAW APPLIES OVERSEAS
Mrs Teo also addressed MPs’ concerns about how OCHA would be enforced against scams and malicious cyber activities perpetrated from overseas.
She noted that the Bill has provisions that allow the government to “pursue directions, notices, directives and orders to entities and individuals even if they have no presence in Singapore”. But she acknowledged that some may choose not to comply.
If that happens, the government can first prosecute for non-compliance where possible, she said.
An access-blocking order can also be issued to internet access service providers to prevent the non-compliant platform from reaching users in Singapore.
But these levers will be used “judiciously and only when necessary”, she said.
“We want the executives of online platforms to take online harms seriously and to comply with the directions. But this does not mean that they have to be personally liable for non-compliance.
“There are more effective measures such as access-blocking. I don’t think any executive in his or her right mind would find it easy to explain to their colleagues why, because of non-compliance, access has been blocked,” she said.
Mrs Teo added that individuals carrying out the specified offences underlying the online content could also be extradited in accordance with the Extradition Act.
COMPARISONS WITH POFMA
Mr Singh on Wednesday told the House that the Workers’ Party (WP) supports the Bill’s implementation if it focuses on targeting scams and offences that cause financial and other harm.
But he also highlighted the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), which WP did not support, as it concerned online content.
He noted that a correction direction was issued to Asia Sentinel, a California-registered publication, over a May 24 article that contained several falsehoods. Correction notices were to be situated at the top of the article and the top of the main page of the website.
When Asia Sentinel did not fully comply, MCI said on Jun 2 that internet access service providers would be ordered to block the site for end-users in Singapore and the access blocking orders would only be cancelled if the publication subsequently complied with the "full requirements" of the correction direction.
Mr Singh found it “draconian” to expect a news website to place a correction direction at the top of the main page of the website. It “should be sufficient”, he said, for the correction notice to be at the top of the article in question if the government’s concern is that Singaporeans can read the government’s point of view.
“Surely that smacks of the government wanting to punish the publishers of the website rather than merely wanting to correct falsehoods in a specific article,” he added.
“The Singapore government must have many tools at its disposal to ensure that its viewpoint is available to Singaporeans. Is it really in the best interest of Singapore citizens that the government blocks not only an article the government deems false, but an entire publication?”
Responding to Mr Singh’s views, Mrs Teo said it was “not quite a correct characterisation” to say “the government decides what is truth” under POFMA.
“Mr Singh knows very well that POFMA deals with false statements of fact. These false statements of facts can be proven. There has to be a basis for making those allegations,” she said.
People are free to continue to make opinions, she added. “But if you say something that is factually incorrect, it is carried online, it can go very far and it has public interest, then that's where POFMA could be considered.”
While Mrs Teo did not address the Asia Sentinel case, she noted that the vast majority of POFMA directions have been fully complied with and the original content remains fully accessible.