Meta to install measures to fight scams impersonating government officials by Sep 30 or face fine: MHA

[SINGAPORE] The Singapore Police Force (SPF) has ordered Meta to install measures against scams impersonating government officials, and similar requirements for other online platforms could follow.

On Wednesday (Sep 24), the SPF’s Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA) Competent Authority issued an implementation directive to Meta, ordering it to put in place measures targeting scam advertisements, accounts, profiles and business pages that impersonate key government office holders on Facebook.

The parent company of Facebook must comply with the directive by Sep 30. A failure to do so without reasonable excuse would render Meta liable on conviction to a fine of up to S$1 million, in addition to a further fine of up to S$100,000 for each day, or part of a day, during which the offence continues after conviction.

This comes as an uptick in incidences of scammers exploiting Facebook to perpetuate scams that impersonate government office holders has been observed between June 2024 and June 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement on Thursday.

Such scams used videos or images of key government office holders in fake advertisements, accounts, profiles and business pages, the ministry said.

The MHA and SPF are considering imposing similar requirements on other online platforms, the ministry said.

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“Facebook is the top platform used by scammers to commit such impersonation scams. Stemming the proliferation of such impersonation scams is critical to protect the public from harm and uphold trust in our government and public institutions,” MHA said.

While Meta has taken steps to address impersonation scams globally, MHA and the SPF remain concerned about the prevalence of such scams in Singapore, and have thus issued the implementation directive to the Facebook parent, the ministry said.

To reduce scams impersonating government office holders, Meta will be required to implement enhanced facial recognition measures in Singapore as well as prioritise the review of end-user reports from Singapore.

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“MHA and SPF will also work with Meta to leverage its global impersonation protection measures to support other influential public figures in Singapore who may be at risk of being impersonated by scammers,” the ministry said.