The Singapore government has announced a successful implementation of a system where more than a hundred agencies are required to send messages to the public via SMS. All messages will be sent through a centralized system using the sender name “gov.sg” to reduce the risk of individuals being deceived by impostors posing as government officials.
As all agencies must send SMS under the same name, each outgoing message will display the name of the sending agency within the message itself. In addition to sending messages with the same Sender ID for easier identification by the public, all mobile phone service providers in Singapore will block any messages attempting to enter Singapore using a Sender ID similar to gov.sg. Previously, Singapore mandated that businesses outside of Singapore must register their Sender ID before sending messages, or else they will be flagged as “Likely SCAM” to warn users of potential deception.
This system was recently introduced on June 18th and will be fully enforced starting July 1st, with over 9 million messages already sent.
Source: Strait Times, sms.gov.sg
TLDR: Singapore government implements system to combat impersonation scams through SMS, requiring all agencies to send messages using “gov.sg” as sender name to protect the public from deceitful practices.
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