New legislation in the pipeline to enhance protection for victims of online harm

25 March 2025

On 4 March 2025, the Ministry of Law (“MinLaw”) released the response speech by Minister of State for Transport and Law, Murali Pillai, SC, at the Committee of Supply Debate 2025.

In his speech, the Minister mentioned, among other things, that MinLaw and the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (“MDDI”) are working together on new legislation that will enhance protection for victims of online harm as follows:

  • Establish a new agency that will quickly act on complaints of online harms. MDDI will share more details about the agency as well as some of its broader efforts to deal with online harms.
  • Set out statutory torts to clarify the types of online harms covered under the law, and the rights and duties of the various parties in the online ecosystem. These statutory torts will provide a clear legal basis for victims to hold to account those responsible for the harm they suffer. It is intended for the statutory torts to apply to a range of serious online harms, including online harassment, intimate image abuse, and child abuse material.
  • Introduce new mechanisms to address the misuse of anonymity by perpetrators of online harms.

The proposed legislation seeks to address the following key gaps identified by MinLaw and MDDI despite significant steps already taken by the Government to address the prevalence of online harms:

  • The need for a simple and fast process to seek relief from online harms. The court process can be daunting and difficult to navigate.
  • Uncertainty over whether existing laws can be used to address new emerging harms.
  • The lack of accountability as perpetrators are often anonymous.

Some of the steps the Government has taken include:

  • Enacting the Protection from Harassment Act 2014 and strengthening it in 2019, to provide victims with legal recourse for harassment, including online harassment, and
  • Enacting the Online Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2022 and the Online Criminal Harms Act 2023 to allow the Government to act against harmful content.

Reference materials

The speech is available on the MinLaw website www.mlaw.gov.sg.