Intrusive laws to tackle scams, neighbour disputes signal society’s priorities on private matters

The long arm of the law looks set to reach further after two Bills were mooted in the House this week.

The Protection from Scams Bill, introduced in Parliament on Nov 11, will give the police powers to control the bank accounts of stubborn scam victims who insist they are not being scammed, despite evidence to the contrary.

If passed, the police will be able to issue a restriction order to a bank that will limit money transfers, ATM withdrawals, and credit card transactions and personal loans.

On Nov 12, Parliament passed the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill after a five-hour debate. The enhanced law will make mediation mandatory for neighbourly disputes, and is set to grant powers to officers of a new Community Relations Unit (CRU) to enter homes and forcibly declutter them in cases of severe hoarding.

At face value, both laws look highly intrusive, granting powers to public officers to reach into people’s wallets and homes. They are certainly novel, and are among the world’s first to grant such powers to counter the hardly unique problems of scams and community quarrels.

But the moves are being made after various earlier measures have not managed to arrest the respective problems.

For instance, scam cases have nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2023, while a record amount of more than $385.6 million was lost in reported cases in the first half of 2024. This is despite a sustained public education campaign and a suite of safeguards to protect the public, such as a “kill switch” for customers to freeze their bank accounts to prevent further unauthorised transactions.

Meanwhile, noise complaints are six times higher than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, partly as more people work from home. Public agencies receive about 2,500 such complaints a month, compared with 400 in 2019.

The laws also have strong public support, signalling society’s desire for more decisive action to tackle both problems. Public consultations for both laws received Singaporeans’ support for there to be stronger levers, said agencies.

While the anti-scam Bill has yet to be debated in Parliament, the community disputes law was passed unanimously after 20 MPs spoke in the debate.

At least five MPs asked questions on why the CRU will only be piloted in Tampines for one year, including Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied GRC), who said it was “disappointing” that the unit would not yet be activated for other towns.

“I can think of a few chronic cases in my ward where the CRU could potentially make a big difference, and a wait of several years will be hard to explain,” she said.

Senior Minister of State for National Development Sim Ann called for patience, as the authorities pilot the CRU model to iron out subsidiary legislation and to firm up its operational processes.

Even as the moves have been welcomed, the authorities took pains to stress that the new powers will be used only as a last resort.

For scam victims, an order to restrict access to one’s own bank account would be issued only if other options to convince the person have failed and there is reasonable belief that he would transfer money to a scammer, said the Ministry of Home Affairs.

As for neighbour disputes, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong stressed that the enhanced law is not meant to supplant the community’s ability to resolve its own problems, but to step in when prior attempts at an amicable outcome to serious disamenity cases have been exhausted.

Mr Tong acknowledged the “deeply intervening” nature of the law when it is applied, but noted how such disputes could become fodder for more than a simple spat if left unchecked.

“Sometimes they have a religious undertone, sometimes there’s an ethnic undertone, and if left unchecked, they can escalate very quickly... and this then frays our relations, undermines our trust and disrupts our social cohesion, and that’s not something we want to see,” he said.

Essentially, a balance has to be carefully and judiciously struck between stepping in to manage a dispute and leaving enough room for neighbours to settle things themselves, and the law is not a panacea, Mr Tong added.

Even as they are last-resort actions, both laws will also underline society’s stance on countering scams and for good neighbourliness, and shepherd good behaviour.

The inconvenience of losing access to one’s bank account will hopefully sober up the more gullible while deterring scammers, and the power to compel unhappy neighbours to sit down and talk to each other will hopefully nip problems before they become intractable.

Nominated MP Syed Harun Alhabsyi’s call for vigilance against being overly reliant on legislation as a tool for resolving community disputes is therefore worth heeding.

Even as Singapore makes strong legislative moves so that the authorities can deal with the most extreme cases, it is a reminder to everyone where society’s priorities lie, even when it comes to private matters.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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