By CNA

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The Singapore government has ordered Meta to put in place measures such as facial recognition to curb Facebook impersonation scams in the first such directive under the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA).
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has until September 30 to comply.
Apart from implementing enhanced facial recognition measures, it is also required to prioritise the review of end-user reports from Singapore to reduce scam advertisements, accounts, profiles and/or business pages impersonating key government office holders in Singapore.
Meta faces a fine of up to S$1 million (US$776,400) upon conviction if it fails to comply, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a press release on Thursday.
If the offence continues, Meta could face a further fine of up to S$100,000 for every day or part of a day during which the offence continues after conviction.
The intention to issue the directive was first announced on September 3 at the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025 and it comes amid a surge in government official impersonation scams.
Between June 2024 and June 2025, MHA and the Singapore Police Force (SPF) saw an increase in scammers exploiting Facebook to perpetrate impersonation scams using videos or images of key government office holders in fake advertisements, accounts, profiles and business pages.
During this period, SPF disrupted about 2,000 such advertisements and online monikers on Facebook.

“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 on Thursday.
“While Meta has taken steps to address the risk of impersonation scams globally, including in Singapore, MHA and SPF remain concerned by the prevalence of such scams in Singapore. SPF has therefore issued this implementation directive to Meta to underscore the seriousness that the government attaches to the matter.”
Meta has been contacted for comment on whether it intends to implement the measures.
MHA said authorities are also considering imposing similar requirements on other online platforms and that more details would be announced “in due course”.
“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.”
This story was first published by CNA