Singapore an advanced surveillance state, but citizens don’t mind

Leaks of top secret documents by intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden has exposed Singapore as a key “third party” providing five countries, including the United States and Australia, secret access to Malaysia’s communications data.

This is done by way of Singapore intelligence tapping on the SEA-ME-WE-3 internet cable, which runs from Japan to Singapore, Djibouti, Suez, and the Straits of Gibraltar to Northern Germany. SingTel, Singapore’s largest telco which has close relations to the government, allegedly facilitated providing access to the cable. Malaysia and Indonesia are said to be key targets for Australian and Singaporean intelligence.

However, the news, which suggests that the state has the resources to spy on its own citizens, got little traction within the country. Revealed in August, the pageviews only snowballed recently, and even so, it garnered a weaker reaction than the entrance of extra-marital dating site Ashley Madison into Singapore, a move which sparked an outcry among conservative Singaporeans.

It seems that citizens are more concerned about moral policing than the possibility of having their actions monitored by the state.

Singapore has unfettered access to citizen’s data

The recent leaks about the NSA’s highly organized attempts to spy on the world has not led to an outcry in Singapore. Few ask if the government has PRISM-like programs in place to monitor citizens, but few doubt that the state can get private data whenever it wants. It’s an accepted but hidden fact of life.

Online services and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Singapore are at the mercy of the government. Laws are so broadly phrased that the government can obtain access to sensitive data like text messages, e-mail, call logs, and web surfing history without court permission. Contrast this with the United States, where a court order or search warrant is required to obtain data without the user’s knowledge.

Singapore’s Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act has been amended to let the government compel organizations to do pre-emptive surveillance. The Criminal Procedure Code is phrased in such a way to enable investigators to forcibly obtain any information they need.

The newly enacted Personal Data Protection Act, meanwhile, is aimed more at restricting companies’ use of private data. Government agencies are exempted from most parts of the Act.

The state’s obtaining of user data without permission is historical fact. In 1999, SingTel was found to have scanned its customers’ computers surreptitiously under the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs. In 2008, ISPs were forced to disclose personal details of its subscribers in a lawsuit involving copyright infringement.

Then between 2008 and 2009, a police officer was arrested for using his office database to obtain the addresses and criminal records of several individuals, including past girlfriends, while an immigration officer was charged with helping his foreign mistress enter the country with a fake identity.

This year, a group of youths were rounded up for questioning for holding illegal public protests held under the banner of the Anonymous movement. These individuals coordinated their plan on Facebook.

Government data requests

According to a Global Government Request Report released by Facebook, the Singapore government has made 107 information requests in the first half of 2013, which when adjusted to population size, makes it one of the highest in requests per capita (but still lower than the United States). It has made 111 information requests to Google over the same period.

In response to a question made in Parliament about these data requests, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean responded that the government has made about 600 combined requests a year to Google, Facebook, and Microsoft from 2010 to 2012, of which the majority were for investigating Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act offenses, while the rest were for crimes like corruption, terrorist threats, cheating, theft, gambling and vice. These requests were for non-content data like account-related information and login details.

Security trumps privacy

As surveillance rises, so must checks and balances