​​​​​​​ISTANBUL

Singapore ordered Apple and Google to take measures to prevent government impersonation scams on their messaging platforms, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement Tuesday.

The directives require the companies to "put in place measures to prevent the spoofing of Singapore Government agencies via iMessage and personal Rich Communication Services messaging on Google Messages," it said. Spoofing occurs when a person or program falsifies information to disguise their identity.

The government has been using the "gov.sg" SMS sender ID to protect the public from impersonation scams since July 2024.

Current safeguards do not apply to messages sent via iMessage and Google Messages, the ministry added.

Police have recorded more than 120 scam cases involving SingPost impersonation, the country's postal service provider, it said.

Both messaging platforms are now required to prevent accounts and group chats from displaying names that spoof "gov.sg" or the names of government agencies; to filter messages from accounts or groups using spoofed names; and to ensure that profile names of unknown senders are either not displayed or shown less prominently than their phone numbers.

Failure to comply without a reasonable excuse is subject to a fine of up to $1 million, with an additional fine of up to $100,000 for each day or part of a day the offense continues after conviction.

Singapore ordered Meta, the parent company of US social media company Facebook, to implement anti-scam measures last month to prevent fraudsters from impersonating key government officials on its platform.

Cases of government official impersonation scams nearly tripled in 2025, compared to 2024, with 1,762 reported incidents.

Victims lost $126.5 million in the first half of 2025, an almost 90% increase from the $67.2 million recorded in the same period of 2024, according to police statistics released Aug. 30.