Singapore steps up Singpass app to combat online fraud
Singapore has begun implementing a facial recognition feature for users through its national digital identification app, Singpass, before the authentication tool allows them to carry out banking or other online transactions.
A special anti-fraud team at the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) will provide data that triggers the feature either randomly or when there are signs of a potential cyber intrusion.
Facial verification protects citizens’ online accounts by matching their faces with government records in real time. It deters remote online activities on users’ accounts, including malware infections, without their knowledge.
The heightened checks have come on the heels of a spate of phishing scams in 2021 and 2022 targeting OCBC customers, who lost a total of 13.7 million SGD (10.6 million USD.
The incident, and the discovery that scammers had also targeted Singpass accounts, prompted GovTech to set up its anti-fraud team in 2022.
Since then, the team, in coordination with fraud response experts, analysts, and data scientists, has been monitoring suspicious activities and alerting the police. In turn, the police can instruct GovTech to suspend compromised Singpass accounts.
Stolen Singpass accounts had been used to open bank accounts and register mobile lines to conduct fraudulent activities. Thousands of fraudulently opened financial accounts and SIM cards had been terminated in 2024.
The increased surveillance comes as Singpass becomes more ubiquitous, used by more than five million residents to access over 2,700 services – from banking and insurance to health care and e-commerce.
Singpass also secures access to the 300,000 transactions performed daily using MyInfo, a service that allows users to fill in digital forms with their personal data drawn from government databases.
GovTech also advises citizens not to disclose Singpass-related information in any form. In Singapore, disclosing one's own information or obtaining another person's Singpass login information to facilitate a crime is illegal and can result in imprisonment, fines, or both.
In 2024, scam victims in Singapore lost a record 1.1 billion USD. For the first six months of 2025, 456.4 million USD was lost to scams, a drop from the 522.4 million USD lost during the same period in 2024.