Singapore proposes ASEAN initiatives to combat online scams

Singapore has proposed two new initiatives to strengthen the ASEAN response to online scams ahead of its chairmanship of the bloc next year. Senior Minister K. Shanmugam announced the proposals in Parliament, highlighting Singapore's role as the Voluntary Lead Shepherd for ASEAN Cybercrime and Online Scams.

The first proposal is the ‘ASEAN Code of Practice to Combat Scams on Online Platforms’. This voluntary framework aims to establish baseline protections for member states, including timely escalation of detected fraudulent activities to authorities and verification measures to prevent the use of unauthentic accounts.

The second proposal is the ‘ASEAN Best Practices Guide’, which would cover scam investigations, legislation, and public education. These efforts complement existing multilateral initiatives like ‘FRONTIER+’, a program involving six ASEAN member states that facilitates intelligence exchange, joint law enforcement, and cross-border asset tracking.