Singapore’s police ordered Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google to prevent the spoofing of government agencies on their messaging platforms, Reuters reported, citing the country’s home affairs ministry.
The order, under Singapore’s Online Criminal Harms Act, followed the police seeing scams on Apple’s iMessage and Google Messages purporting to be from companies such as the local postal service SingPost, the report added.
In September, the government also warned to impose fines on Meta Platforms (META) if it did not introduce measures, such as facial recognition, to help curb impersonation scams on Facebook, including those involving key government officials, the report noted.
The government agencies have registered with a local SMS registry so only they can send messages with the “gov.sg” name. However, this does not currently apply to the iMessage and Google Messages platforms, according to the report.
“Members of the public may assume that messages they receive from accounts claiming to be from ‘gov.sg’ on iMessage or Google Messages are legitimate because messages sent through iMessage and Google Messages appear alongside and are not easily distinguishable from SMSes,” said the police.
Under the order, the two companies will need to prevent accounts and group chats from displaying names that spoof “gov.sg” and other Singapore government agencies or filter such messages out, the report added.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
The home affairs ministry said Apple and Google have pledged to adhere to the order and have asked people to update their mobile apps to ensure that the latest safeguards are in place, the report noted.