Singapore's new Payment Services Act consolidates current regulatory frameworks for payments into a unified, expanded framework intended to align the payments ecosystem with the country's Smart Nation vision. The Act focuses on retail payment activities by service providers that deal directly with consumers or merchants. The Act implements an activity-based, risk-calibrated approach to regulation and a consolidated, enhanced licensing scheme.

Read more

Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission, in collaboration with the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore, issued a discussion paper on data portability. Data portability is the right of individuals to obtain copies of their data from companies that hold them and to instruct those companies to transmit their data to other companies. The Paper is intended to provide a framework for discussions of the effects and operational considerations related to data portability, with a view to informing future consultations concerning Singapore's potential adoption of a data portability right.

Read more

The Personal Data Protection Commission directed COURTS (Singapore) Pte Ltd to pay a S$15,000 penalty for automatically displaying an individual's contact number and residential address if an email address entered on a guest check-out page of the firm's website matched an email address in the firm's database. The PDPC found that COURTS violated the PDPA's Protection Obligation by allowing an email address to be used as the sole login credential.

Read more

In what it called "the worst breach of personal data in Singapore's history", the Personal Data Protection Commission imposed penalties of S$250,000 on Singapore Health Services Pte Ltd and S$750,000 on Integrated Health Information Systems Pte Ltd after a hacker exfiltrated almost 1.5 million patients' personal data and 159,000 patients' outpatient prescription records.

Read more

Singapore's Info-Communications Media Development Authority has published A Proposed Model Artificial Intelligence Governance Framework. The Model Framework seeks to provide guidance to organisations that incorporate AI solutions into their products and services on ways to approach those issues that will inspire consumer confidence and enhance regulatory compliance. The Model Framework is voluntary guidance intended to promote thoughtful and responsible implementation of AI solutions.

Read more