Chairman's Message

MESSAGE FROM CHAIRMAN

In 2023, while the total number of physical crime cases dropped by 1.1%, scams and cybercrime cases increased significantly by 49.6%. Singapore continued to be a safe and secure city for everyone but the cyberspace still continues to be a concern.

There were 277 days last year which were free from robbery, snatch theft and theft of motor vehicle. Compared to the 241 days in 2022, it was an improvement of 36 days. The top physical crimes included shop theft, theft in dwelling, outrage of modesty and voyeurism. Shop theft alone accounted for 19.7% of all physical crimes. More than 68% of the cases took place at department stores, supermarkets and pharmacies.

Although the number of outrage of modesty (OM) cases fell to 1,528 in 2023 (from 1,610 in 2022), NCPC continued to work with SPF and stakeholders to educate the public on the preventive measures. In January 2024, the fourth edition of the Safe Clubbing Campaign (formerly known as Smart Clubbing Campaign) was kicked off. It was strongly supported by the Singapore Nightlife Business Association and Singapore River One to foster a safe environment for patrons and staff of public entertainment outlets. NCPC has also been working with public transport operators to put up educational posters on OM at train stations, bus interchanges and on MRT trains.

The number of scams and cybercrime cases increased to 50,376 in 2023, compared to 33,669 cases the year before. There was a slight decrease in the total amount lost by victims, from $660.7 million to $651.8 million. Unfortunately, that was still a very large sum of money being cheated in a year.

The top five scam types were job scams, e-commerce scams, fake friend call scams, phishing scams and investment scams. NCPC’s “I can ACT against Scams” campaign continued to educate Singaporeans on the common ways to protect themselves from scams. A new music video on ACT garnered more than one million views on social and digital platforms. Through a survey conducted in 2023, we were glad to find out that 79% of the 1,000 respondents recalled seeing at least one of our campaign posters. In addition, 78% were able to recall the messages under the ACT campaign. Meanwhile, the ScamShield app achieved more than 850,000 downloads and users submitted over 7.9 million suspected SMSes. Each report made by the ScamShield user helped to enhance the app’s detection capability, thus preventing scammers from reaching more victims.

As can be seen, each and everyone of us can play a crucial role to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Indeed, crime prevention is a Shared Responsibility! Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to all the community partners, stakeholders and sponsors for contributing to the success of NCPC’s crime prevention programmes in 2023.

GERALD SINGHAM , JP, BBM (L), PBM
Chairman, NCPC