SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): Facebook, Instagram and TikTok must soon verify the identities of advertisers on their platforms against government-issued records.
They will also need to block advertisements from unlicensed financial services firms. This includes advertisers not licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The three social media platforms have to comply with these new requirements by Jan 31, 2027, under a new Code of Practice for Social Media Services for such platforms announced by the police on Aug 18.
Failure to comply will be a criminal offence under the Online Criminal Harms Act, and may result in fines of up to S$1 million (RM3.03 million). Online services that continue not to comply may additionally be fined up to $100,000 for each day of non-compliance after conviction.
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounted for about 30 per cent of total scam cases in 2025. In a statement, the police said that these three platforms pose “the highest scam risk to users in Singapore”. Notably, Facebook alone accounted for about 18 per cent of total scam cases here last year.
“A key concern on social media platforms is the use of advertisements to target potential victims,” said the police. Noting that these platforms profit from the advertisements published on them, the police said the platforms must ensure that the advertisements’ content does not result in a crime being carried out.
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok must also prevent advertisements suspected of being linked to scams from being published on their platforms. For instance, they must check if the advertisements have masked URL links that hide what the real URL is or lead to suspicious content.
After those two codes came into effect on June 26, 2024, scam cases on online services dropped by 37 per cent in 2025 from 2024, said the police. The reduction shows that upstream safeguards play an important role in making it harder for scammers to target Singapore users, it said.
However, the police pointed to how scammers have adapted their tactics and are exploiting new technologies and features on online platforms, such as messaging applications, online advertisements and video conferencing.
More than four in five Singapore residents, or 84 per cent of them, also reported encountering harmful content online, a recent Ministry of Digital Development and Information survey showed. The most common harmful content they encountered online was linked to illegal activity, such as scams.
The police’s Online Criminal Harms Act Office engaged online services on these risks, and later developed new and enhanced Codes of Practice to deal with online harms.
Besides the Social Media Code, the police also issued a new Code of Practice for Online Messaging and Conferencing Services. This is on the back of online messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, forming 23 per cent of all scam cases in 2025.
The police said that the code applies to online messaging and conferencing services that pose the highest risk of scams to users in Singapore. They are: WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Apple iMessage, Apple FaceTime, Google Message and Google Meet.
By Jan 31, 2027, these services must put in place measures to make it more difficult for unknown contacts to engage users, or alert users to potential scam risk posed by contacts not known to them.
For example, a user must give consent to being added into a chat group or channel by an unknown contact. When users get messages or calls from unknown or suspicious accounts, the messaging services have to alert them with warnings that give users more information about who is contacting them. This can include showing when and in which country the unknown account was created.
Users of messaging services must also be able to silence, filter or block messages or calls from people not in their contact lists.
In explaining the rationale for these new measures, the police said scammers in investment scams offer lucrative investment products to victims using accounts that are not previously known to them.
The police flagged another type of scam on online messaging services where scammers impersonate government officials. About 18 per cent of these scam cases here in 2025 took place on WhatsApp. Crooks have also posed as police officers to carry out phishing scams on other messaging platforms like Google Meet.
The new Messaging Code will combat such scams by having requirements to prevent profile names or pictures from being used to spoof the Singapore Government.
Due to the urgency of addressing cases where scammers impersonate government officials, the police said that messaging services must comply with the new measures to fight such spoofing by Sept 30 this year.
An existing Code of Practice for e-Commerce Services – which applies to Carousell, Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Business Pages – was also updated by the police.
By Jan 31, 2027, these e-commerce platforms need to have stronger measures in place before allowing logins from new or unrecognised devices. The same advertisement safeguards for the new Social Media Code also apply to e-commerce platforms under the enhanced e-Commerce Code to protect users from being exploited by online scam advertisements.
When the new Messaging Code and e-Commerce Code come into effect, they will replace the existing Online Communication Services Code.
While online platforms designated under the new and existing Codes of Practice are expected to do more to improve the safety of their services, the police urged the public to remain vigilant and continue to take precautions when interacting and transacting online. -- The Straits Times/Asia News Network
