Mr Speaker, Sir, scams are no longer a small problem in Singapore. They are the most prevalent type of crime in Singapore, and account for greater losses than all physical crime combined. The mid-year statistics released on 26 August show some hard-won progress but they also point to a stubborn reality. Losses fell to about $410.6 million in the first half of 2026, down some 18 per cent from the $500.2 million lost in the same period a year before, and the number of cases fell too. That is real progress, and it reflects the combined effort of the Government, the industry and the community. But in the same breath the police told us that around eight in 10 victims still handed their money over voluntarily, meaning they were manipulated, not hacked. Since 2019, Singaporeans have lost more than $4 billion to scams. So while the trend line is encouraging, no one in this House should mistake it for victory.
Sir, behind every one of those figures is a person. Our older residents in particular are being targeted, and the losses they suffer are severe. Statistics from the police show that the average amount lost per elderly victim rose from about $35,000 in the first half of 2025 to over $42,000 in the same period this year. What should trouble us most is that so many of these victims are not hacked but manipulated. They were befriended by strangers with ill intentions and subsequently coaxed and deceived into transferring their own savings. In some cases, they continue paying even after they begin to suspect that something is wrong. This is not a story about foolish people. These are our parents and grandparents. It is a story about how sophisticated the manipulation has become.
Sir, this Bill tackles that framework from several directions at once, amending five separate statutes — the Protection from Scams Act, the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act, the Online Criminal Harms Act, the Police Force Act and the Banking Act. I will confine my remarks to a few provisions where I believe the powers are welcome, but where the House should press for safeguards.
On the new enforcement orders
The Service Limitation Orders and Account Disabling Orders under the new Part 2A are, I believe, powers that most Singaporeans will welcome. The logic is sound: if we can freeze an account or cut off a line the moment there is reason to believe it is being used to move scam proceeds, we interrupt the crime while the money is still in reach. The condition-based Account Disabling Order — which lets an officer disable a whole class of accounts meeting specified criteria — is a sensible response to syndicates that operate at scale through networks of mule accounts.
But I must raise one concern that I suspect every Member will recognize from our Meet-the-People Sessions. My concern is not with the freezing of accounts. It is with how quickly they are un-frozen when the account holder turns out to be innocent and, in particular, with the longer suspensions that fall outside the 30-day limit this Bill sets.
Sir, we must remember that innocent people can be caught in the middle of these schemes through no fault of their own. A person may find funds transferred into their account by a scammer, or may have unwittingly dealt with someone who turned out to be a fraudster, and suddenly find their own account frozen. For a working person, losing access to their account is not a minor inconvenience. The impact can be disproportionately high on lower-income earners. It can mean rent going unpaid, instalments being missed, and real strain on the family.
So my questions to the Minister are these. First, how was the 30-day period for an Account Disabling Order arrived at, and is there scope to make it shorter still? I welcome that this new order carries a hard limit of 30 days, extendable once because a defined cap is itself a safeguard, and it disciplines the exercise of the power.
But that welcome cap prompts a larger question. The hardship my residents bring to our Meet-the-People Sessions rarely comes from a 30-day freeze. It comes from accounts suspended for many months, under banks' own processes, or during ongoing investigations, where no equivalent statutory limit applies. That is where the strain is felt most keenly. So I would ask the Minister: what service standards govern the lifting of these longer suspensions once an innocent party is cleared, and what recourse does that person have to have their account restored sooner? I say candidly to this House: with these powers, we should expect more MPS cases from residents whose accounts have been frozen, asking us to help appeal for the orders to be lifted. When that happens, they should be able to get a swift response and a fair process.
On the Civilian Specialist Officers
Sir, one of the most significant features of this Bill, to my reading, is the creation of Civilian Specialist Officers under the new sections in the Police Force Act. These officers will be granted police-grade powers of investigation and arrest. To my understanding, these powers would be comparable to those of officers of the Commercial Affairs Department with an initial focus on cybercrime.
I have two questions. First, where will this new body sit? The powers mirror those of CAD officers, but the Bill does not make clear whether these officers will operate under CAD, under some new unit, or elsewhere within the Force. I would like some clarity on the command structure and, importantly, who will be accountable for these powers.
Second, and I put this plainly: the Bill states that it will not involve the Government in any extra financial expenditure. If that is so, I would ask the Minister — from where is the manpower for these Civilian Specialist Officers to be drawn? Are they to come from existing SPF, MHA or wider public-service establishment? If we are asking existing officers to take on this work, we should also be clear about what may have to give elsewhere. We need to be confident that we are not stretching our enforcement capacity too thin, especially when we are asking more of it.
On automated decision-making
Sir, I want to flag Clause 19, which allows a Part 2 direction which may include a direction to take down an online location. This direction could be issued by the operation of a computer program, with a responsible officer accountable for it. If I read this correctly, this is among the first times that our enforcement framework expressly contemplates an automated system making such a decision.
I understand entirely why. Malicious websites are spun up faster than any human team can act; in the first half of this year alone the police disrupted tens of thousands of scam-related mobile lines, WhatsApp lines and malicious websites. Automation is how we keep pace. But precisely because this is a novel step, I would ask the Minister to set out the safeguards: what human oversight sits behind the "responsible officer," what audit and review mechanisms will apply, and what recourse exists where a legitimate site is caught by mistake. Speed and due process need not be in tension, but we must design for both.
On stricter punishments
Sir, the Bill introduces caning for those who traffic in the tools of scams — those who sell, buy or supply designated online accounts, or hand over their personal particulars to open them, knowing they will be used for scams. I expect it will be hard for any Member to speak against this, and I do not intend to. Scams have imposed a heavy toll on affected Singaporean households. Savings have been wiped out and victims left with nothing but the shame and embarrassment they will have to endure. Given the toll, I believe most Singaporeans will support firmer deterrence against those who knowingly enable this trade.
I would only observe that the Bill wisely targets the knowing enabler, with evidential presumptions that a person who does this "for any gain," or who fails to check who they are handing their credentials to, is presumed to have known. We saw recently how this trade operates in practice — a young man charged with buying e-wallets from work permit holders, paying them around $50 each, through which nearly $10,000 in scam proceeds flowed. The $50 seller and the syndicate buyer are both links in the chain, and it is right that the law reaches both. I would ask the Minister only to confirm that our enforcement and our public education will continue to distinguish clearly between the syndicate operative and the naive or desperate individual who is themselves being exploited.
On what counts as a scam
Sir, if I may broaden the lens for a moment. Part of protecting Singaporeans is being clear about what these numbers include and what they leave out. In an earlier sitting I asked how the Police classify a case as a scam where a seller fails to complete a transaction and multiple buyers lose money, and what distinguishes such cases from ordinary civil or commercial disputes.
The Minister's answer was instructive. Where a seller deceives buyers into paying with no intention of ever delivering, that may amount to cheating under the Penal Code. But where a seller simply fails to deliver without fraudulent intent, no cheating offence is disclosed, and the buyer's recourse is a civil one. The Police assess each case on its facts. For instance, whether the seller impersonated a legitimate shop, or became uncontactable the moment payment was received.
I raise this not to quarrel with the distinction, which is legally correct, but to make a point about the resident's experience. To a buyer who is out of pocket, the line between "scam" and "civil dispute" feels academic. The money is gone either way, and a civil claim for a few hundred dollars is rarely worth pursuing. As we build this formidable apparatus against scams, I would ask the Government not to lose sight of these residents who fall into the gap: those cheated of smaller sums, or left to the civil courts, for whom our new powers offer little. Consumer protection and accessible redress for small-value e-commerce disputes must advance alongside our anti-scam enforcement, not lag behind it.
Mr Speaker, in Malay please.
Summary in Malay
Tuan Speaker, kes penipuan atau scam bukan lagi satu masalah kecil di Singapura. Ia merupakan jenayah paling berleluasa dan mencatatkan kerugian yang lebih besar jika dibandingkan dengan gabungan kesemua jenayah fizikal yang lain.
Mengenai Perintah Penguatkuasaan Baharu
Saya mengalu-alukan perintah penguatkuasaan baharu di bawah Bahagian 2A. Walau bagaimanapun, ada beberapa perkara yang ingin saya bangkitkan, berdasarkan maklum balas dari Sesi Bertemu Penduduk (MPS). Pembekuan akaun yang berterusan dalam jangka masa yang lama seringkali akan menjejas mangsa penipuan. Saya ingin meminta Menteri mempertimbangkan proses kawal selia dan hak rayuan untuk pembatalan perintah pembekuan bagi mereka yang sudah dibuktikan tidak bersalah dalam kes penipuan.
Mengenai Pegawai Pakar Awam
Penubuhan jawatan Pegawai Pakar Awam di bawah seksyen baharu dalam Akta Pasukan Polis memberi mereka kuasa penyiasatan dan penangkapan setaraf gred polis. Saya ingin meminta Menteri menjelaskan di manakah badan baharu ini akan ditempatkan, dan dari manakah tenaga manusia akan diambil untuk pegawai-pegawai baru ini.
Mengenai Membuat Keputusan Secara Automatik
Saya ingin menarik perhatian kepada Fasal 19 yang membenarkan arahan untuk menurunkan sesebuah lelaman atau lokasi dalam talian dikeluarkan secara langsung oleh program komputer di bawah seorang "pegawai yang bertanggungjawab". Adakah terdapat pemantauan manusia di dalam perkara ini, dan adakah proses audit dan semakan akan diadakan?
Mengenai Hukuman Lebih Ketat
Saya menyokong kuat pengenalan hukuman sebat terhadap mereka yang memperdagangkan peralatan scam. Namun, saya ingin meminta Menteri untuk melihat kes penipuan dan membezakan penguatkuasaan antara dalang sindiket dengan individu yang mungkin terdesak atau sendiri merupakan mangsa.
Mengenai Apa Yang Dianggap Sebagai Scam
Kita perlu prihatin terhadap perbezaan sesuatu yang dianggap penipuan “scam” dan “pertikaian sivil”. Perlindungan pengguna dan akses yang mudah bagi saluran tuntutan ganti rugi e-dagang bernilai kecil mesti berkembang seiring dengan penguatkuasaan anti-scam kita.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, Sir, this Bill grants the authorities broad and, in places, sweeping powers, and it mandates firmer punishments. Given what scams have done to this country, that is not surprising, and on balance I support it. Powerful tools are warranted against a threat of this scale.
But powerful tools demand equally serious safeguards. The measure of this Bill will not only be how many syndicate accounts we freeze. It will be how quickly we free the innocent ones we freeze by mistake, how transparently our new officers and our new automated systems are held to account, and whether the resident who loses money in the grey zone still finds a door open somewhere in Government. I hope the Minister can address the concerns I have raised on the lifting of orders, on the manpower and placement of the Civilian Specialist Officers, and on the oversight of automated decisions.
Sir, notwithstanding the questions and clarifications I have raised, I support the Bill.
