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Heightening Online Safety Awareness in Singapore

To commemorate its one-year anniversary of efforts to make the online environment safer for everyone, members of the Sunlight AfA or the Singapore Together Alliance for Action to tackle online attacks, especially those targeted at women and girls, gathered.

The Sunlight AfA, which was introduced by the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) in July 2021, aimed to close the gap in digital safety and create assistance systems for those who had been harmed online.

The 48 members of the AfA represented the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The Sunlight AfA also backs the national Digital for Life movement as a whole-of-society initiative.

Through its five main workstreams—public education, research, victim support, volunteerism and partnerships, and harbour engagement—it has produced worthwhile programmes and initiatives. The AfA has the following in the previous year:

  • Identified Singapore’s exposure to internet hazards and potential future research topics
  • Raised awareness of the dangers of the internet and digital safety
  • Enlisted and prepared people to aid those who had been harmed online
  • Enhanced the ecosystem’s capacity to react to online harms

The Sunlight AfA commissioned a sensing poll in January 2022 to gain a better understanding of the prevalence of internet harm as well as Singaporeans’ experiences and perceptions regarding the problem. This aided in the identification of pressing problems and the advancement of efforts to create a safer Internet for all parties involved, including government organisations.

The AfA created a roadmap to establish the research agenda for online harm to Singapore’s research community based on the sensing poll results. The roadmap aims to assist the community in planning research projects to enhance Singapore’s comprehension of online dynamics, develop potential responses, and evaluate their efficacy.

The Sunlight AfA also educates Singaporeans about online dangers and provides them with advice on how to stay safe when using the internet. To make it simple for people to access the information they need, the Sunlight AfA also created its website (www.sunlightafa.org), which includes a compiled list of online safety resources. These comprised details on tools and safety features for social media networks.

Additionally, Sunlight AfA holds focus group discussions (FGDs) with a variety of target populations, including students, young adults, parents, and educators, to learn about their perspectives on online safety, and any gaps in current public education campaigns aimed at preventing online harm, and potential solutions.

The results of the FGD will be used to establish a roadmap for education that includes suggestions for customised public education programmes that will teach participants how to evaluate media and how to respond to inappropriate content.

On 29 June 2022, Sunlight AfA’s Youth Engagement workstream held a prototype online harms workshop for students from higher education institutions to give them the foundational information they need to identify online damage and protect their peers.

The Victim Support workstream created a list of online harms identifiers, which describe various frequently experienced online harms. This list was created in response to the difficulties hotline staff found in identifying and interacting with victims of online harm. These serve as the building blocks for a potential helpline and would be helpful in assisting with the training of helpline staff following the AfA’s tenure.

Victim support collaborated with roughly 100 volunteer lawyers to provide pro bono legal assistance through legal clinics and strengthened the online ecosystem’s response capabilities.

Several Sunlight AfA members founded SG Her Empowerment Limited (SHE) to continue addressing internet harm. All initiative by the Sunlight AfA has resulted in providing MCI with valuable feedback on online harm.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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