ASEAN Foundation launches anti-scam drive with Google.org

The ASEAN Foundation, a Jakarta-based nonprofit established by ASEAN, launched Scam Ready ASEAN in Kuala Lumpur as a regional online scam prevention program.

The initiative is backed by US$5 million from Google.org amid rising digital fraud in Southeast Asia.

The foundation said the program will work with 20 local organizations, train 2,000 trainers.

The program plans to reach at least 550,000 people through community education, interactive tools, and policy dialogs, with a wider target of 3 million people across the region.

The launch comes as Singapore reported 37,308 scam cases in 2025 with estimated losses of S$913.1 million (US$715 million), with investment, impersonation, job, phishing, and ecommerce scams among the most common, according to the Singapore Police Force.

🔗 Source: ASEAN Foundation

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The program works on public awareness and policy

The effort responds to an estimated US$23.6 billion lost to scams across Southeast Asia in 2024, which sets the regional scale of the damage 1.
Its main teaching tool is a game called ‘Be Scam Ready,’ built on inoculation theory, a method that trains people to spot manipulation through simulated scam tactics in a controlled setting 2.
The project also plans nine policy talks that will draft recommendations for bodies such as the ASEAN Secretariat, the administrative body for the regional bloc, and the ASEAN Anti-Scam Working Group, a coordination group formed in 2024 2.

Google backs trust in Southeast Asia’s digital economy

Google’s funding supports scam prevention efforts that can rebuild trust, which scams erode across Southeast Asia’s online economy 3.
The effort pairs prevention measures such as public education and community training with enforcement, as scams change with generative AI, digital payments, and social media 2.
The approach also raises pressure on other tech companies to go beyond platform safety features and fund broader resilience programs for users in fast-growing digital markets 4.