​Communications lockdown during sensitive police ops ‘makes sense’ but hard to enforce

TODAY

Under the new Public Order and Safety (Special Powers) Bill introduced in Parliament on Tuesday (27 Feb), failing to comply with such a “communications stop order” is an offence that may warrant up to two years’ jail and/or a fine of S$20,000. Dr Kumar Ramakrishna, coordinator of the National Security Studies Programme at the RSIS, said the communications stop order “makes sense” to give security forces more powers to ensure successful operations, and their work can be adversely affected if “just two or three people” post footage of tactical operations online. However, as authorities here have, in recent years, been encouraging Singaporeans to share information of suspicious activity, such as through the SGSecure mobile application, he said “they have to make clear what the relationship between these new proposed laws and things like the mobile app is”. Media professor Ang Peng Hwa from NTU said such legislation may cause members of the public to “err on the side of caution” and hold back from giving relevant information to the authorities. He suggested the authorities also work with technological and social media platforms to halt communications when security may be compromised.