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Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo announced in parliament that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) will introduce new legislation to combat online criminal harms later in 2023.

During her MHA Committee of Supply speech on Feb. 27, Teo, who is also Minister for Communications and Information, said while the government has taken steps to deal with different types of harmful online content and behaviours, there are still gaps.

As such, MHA will introduce the Online Criminal Harms Act later this year.

Teo pointed out online harms are "constantly evolving and take various forms".

Some online harms she listed include falsehoods, foreign interference, and inappropriate sexual abuse material.

She also pointed out that online mediums have been exploited to incite violence, carry out scams at scale and traffic drugs.

Teo said online content can be criminal in its own right, or it can facilitate or abet crimes.

She cited examples such as scams, online incitement of mass public disorder, phishing and distribution of malware.

"We have been monitoring these developments closely, and intend to update our suite of legislation to better protect our people," Teo said.

Teo was addressing questions by Members of Parliament (MPs) Murali Pillai, Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim, and Vikram Nair on updating legislation to target online criminal harms.

Online Criminal Harms Act

The proposed Online Criminal Harms Act will build on current laws like the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), the Foreign Interference Countermeasures Act (FICA), and the Broadcasting Act, Teo said.

The new legislation will expand the scope of regulatory levers that can be applied to online criminal activities. This will include powers to stop or remove online communications that facilitate crimes in the physical world, such as inciting violence.

The new law will also increase the scope of entities that the government can act against, covering all online communication mediums through which criminal activities can be conducted.

Measures will also be introduced to deal more effectively with the nature of online criminal harms.

"The new legislation will introduce upstream measures to detect and reduce scams, such as safeguards against inauthentic accounts," Teo added.

Top photo via MCI on YouTube