Censorship
Misinformation
Security and Surveillance
Probing Facebook: The past year saw a sharp increase in the number of requests from the Singapore government for Facebook to preserve user records for probes.
According to the Straits Times:
The report also said the Government made 1,231 requests to Facebook for information covering 2,721 accounts from January to June this year, of which 74 per cent yielded some data.
Singapore firm blacklisted: A Singapore-based cybersecurity firm has been
blacklisted by the US alongside high-profile firms that have drawn intense controversy over their surveillance of politicians, journalists and activists, such as
Pegasus and
Candiru.
Largest ever data breach: Hotel-booking website RedDoorz
has been fined $74,000 after the largest ever data breach since the introduction of Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act. Nearly 5.9 million Southeast Asian customers were affected.
“Besides attire, the system can detect anomalies like sudden crowding or people fighting, to help to expedite the search in playback of incidents,” said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kenneth Nge, 51, the assistant director of the police’s Operations Systems Division.
“It has helped us to solve crimes faster, when in the past, we would need thousands of hours to run through the process manually.”
Business
Southeast Asia’s internet economy booms: A
report by Alphabet, Temasek and Bain & Company has forecasted that Southeast Asia’s internet economy is to grow to $1 trillion by 2030. The report
also noted that there were 23 unicorns in the region in 2021, largely split between Singapore and Indonesia.
Digital Divides
The need for global digital standards: PM Lee
has called for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group of countries to take the lead in setting global standards to improve participation in the digital economy.
