SINGAPORE: With the rapid proliferation of websites used for scams and other malicious cyber activities, the government is considering how to harness technology to autonomously disrupt these more rapidly, said Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo on Tuesday (Mar 4).
“We will continue to review our laws, to ensure their ability to deal with traditional crimes committed in cyberspace, and strengthen our regulatory frameworks, to better leverage technology to combat cybercrimes,” she added, while laying out the ministry’s spending plans for the year.
Mrs Teo, who is also Minister for Digital Development and Information, said in parliament that the threat landscape was increasingly complex.
“Criminals are exploiting technology, in particular, artificial intelligence (AI), to carry out more sophisticated crimes and to hit more victims,” she said.
A Scam Analytics and Tactical Intervention System (SATIS), jointly developed by GovTech, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF), is an existing example of how scam sites are hunted down and disrupted using AI and machine learning.
It goes beyond impersonated government websites to include bank phishing sites, sites hosting malware and those used in impersonation scams.
In a separate speech later on Tuesday, Minister of State for Home Affairs and Social and Family Development Sun Xueling revealed that SATIS would be expanded to disrupt other scam enablers such as payment channels and mobile numbers.
Mrs Teo said the Home Team has been leveraging technology in its work, particularly in using AI to combat AI-driven crime.
Its AI Movement was launched last year by HTX, the Home Team’s science and technology agency, to develop new AI capabilities across its various agencies.
HTX will hire and train 300 people for an AI workforce by the end of this year, she said. Some of its AI solutions have already been rolled out.
For instance, the Singapore Civil Defence Force’s targeted on-site inspection tool uses AI to assess the likelihood of fire safety violations in commercial and industrial premises, using data such as past inspection reports.
The tool will be progressively rolled out to all frontline units for field testing in coming months, Mrs Teo said.
The Home Team is also leveraging smart and autonomous solutions to detect threats earlier, said Mrs Teo.
The Singapore Prison Service (SPS), for instance, is trialling the use of smart sensors in its medical wards and cells, to monitor inmates’ vital signs remotely.
As the SPS faces a growing pool of older inmates, the new system lets officers respond more quickly to incidents such as falls and abnormal heart rates among the inmates.
