Singapore asks Facebook, Carousell to put up stronger safeguards against scams

The Online Criminal Harms Act was passed in July of last year.

Popular social media apps Facebook and Carousell are among the platforms that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) considers “high risk” for online scams, requiring them to have better defenses against bad actors.

MHA identified Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and WeChat as some of the online communication platforms presenting the “highest risk of scams to Singapore users.”

MHA requires these apps to have systems, processes, or measures in place to proactively detect suspected scams and malicious cyber activities, while maintaining reasonable verification measures to prevent the proliferation of scams and other cyber harms. 

The ministry also requires them to submit an annual report on their progress.

For e-commerce, MHA said online shopping platforms Carousell as well as Facebook’s Marketplace, Advertisements, and Pages were deemed as apps posing the highest risks of e-commerce scams in the city-state.

MHA said these platforms should follow the same requirements with two additional safeguards, including subjecting sellers to verify their identity against government-issued records.

There should be payment protection mechanisms in place that require proof of delivery before payment is released to the sellers. 

If the volume of e-commerce and advertisement scams on Carousell and Facebook “does not drop significantly,” MHA said it will require the apps to verify the identity of all of its sellers and advertisers by next year, around 1 April to 1 March 2025.

These measures were part of the codes of practice and implementation directives provisions in the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA) that was enforced starting today, 24 June. 

OCHA was passed in July last year to safeguard the public from various harms online and ensure the authorities are better equipped to fight criminal acts on the internet.