SINGAPORE — Despite years of advocacy and action to protect children from online harms, the percentage of children exposed to online harms worldwide continues to hover at around 70 per cent.

The 2023 Child Online Safety Index (Cosi) found that worldwide, 67 per cent of children experienced at least one cyber risk — such as cyberbullying, video game addiction, offline meetings, and online sexual behaviours — in the past year, similar to the last six years. 

While Singapore continues to perform well compared to other countries — receiving an “A” in the areas of children’s safe use of technology, family support for child online safety, school education and technology infrastructure — the report found that the nation fell short in two areas.

The report gave Singapore a C grade when it came to policies and regulations around protecting children from online harms, and a B grade when it comes to infocomm technology company responsibility for child online safety.

A C grade translates to being in the third quartile among 100 countries, while an A grade means the nation is ranked among the top quartile. 

Last Thursday (Nov 2), international think-tank DQ Institute released this year’s Cosi report. A total of 351,376 children aged eight to 18 years old participated in the study, of which 16,847 were from Singapore.

Speaking to TODAY at the sidelines of the Global Cybersecurity Forum in Saudi Arabia via a telephone call, founder of DQ Institute Yuhyun Park said the index is moving away from ranking countries. 

“We see consistency across the years as well as across regions and countries that the percentage of cyber risk prevalence is 70 per cent,” said Dr Park.

“What we found is that its not a matter of culture and country-specific issues. So that’s why we moved away from ranking countries and instead want to help countries identify the areas they need to improve further.”

The Cosi report had previously ranked Singapore fourth in 2020. 

While Singapore is performing “much better” than the global average of children being exposed to one online harm in 2023 — “less than 60 per cent compared to the global average of 67 per cent” — Dr Park said that this is “still too many children”.

Dr Park added that the Cosi report’s grading system also signifies a need for a global effort to protect children from online harm, rather than just country- or individual-level efforts.

INCREASE COLLABORATION WITH BIG TECH FIRMS, POLICY

Dr Park described Singapore’s efforts on the education front to equip children with cyber-wellness habits as the “gold standard”, noting that there is good collaboration between infocomm and technology companies, the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), and the Ministry of Education, among others.

But while other countries should take a page on that front, she said Singapore could look at others when it comes to children-targeted policies to protect them from online harm.

While Dr Park acknowledged that there are various laws in place to protect Singaporeans from harmful online content, including the Online Criminal Harms Act which lowers the legal threshold for authorities to act against those who commit or abet online crimes, she said that the Government ought to work more with infocomm and technology companies like TikTok, Google and Meta.

“Australia is actually taking the lead in terms of child online safety bills that is both broad and in depth at the same time,” she said.

One thing she pointed out was Australia’s “safety by design” move, which encourages such companies to self-regulate their content and put in safety measures from the beginning.

Dr Park added that Singapore has the potential to lead in this area, and ought to be more proactive with its policies around child online safety — especially because technology is advancing at a rapid speed.

“There’s no unified reporting system and there’s no unified way for citizens as well as governments (to) understand the level of exposure and risk in a consistent manner,” added Dr Park.

“I wish the Singapore government can take the lead and talk about the uniform reporting related to the defined measure that we can help citizens, users, parents, and children understand their level of cyber risk from infocomm and technology companies.”

While Singapore may be excelling in education and digital parenting of cyber wellness, Dr Park said that the index’s findings show that more needs to be done.

“A lot of the time we point the finger at children and parents. But I’d like to suggest that it should come from the more systemic efforts from the Government and industry, which trickles down to the parents and children,” said Dr Park.

She added that as much as technology continues to advance, it is important to ensure there are safeguards to reduce the harm to children. 

“We should aim to lower the percentage of children exposed to at least one online in a year to 50 per cent,” she added.

ONLINE SAFETY CLEAR PRIORITY FOR S’PORE GOVERNMENT: MCI

In response to queries about the report, the MCI told TODAY that online safety is a “clear priority for the Singapore Government”.

“We look into online safety on multiple fronts to mitigate the risks of social media content to Singapore users, especially children, working with the industry and the community,” said MCI.

“We are encouraged by Singapore’s performance in the Cosi for the indicators of children’s safe use of technology, family support, school education and technology infrastructure, which placed us in the top quartile of the global average.”

On Cosi’s grading of a C for policies and regulations around protecting children from online harms, MCI said that the Cosi 2023 methodology report used an index — known as Out of the Shadows — for the indicators.

The Out of the Shadows Index benchmarks countries based on how they prevent and respond to child sexual exploitation and abuse.

“We note that the Out of the Shadows Index only has the participation of 60 countries, and that Singapore did not participate in this index,” said MCI.

It listed various legislations it has passed, including the Online Safety Miscellaneous Amendments Act in 2022, which included consulting major social media services.

“Today, Singapore is one of the few countries globally to have introduced legislation to regulate harmful online content on social media services,” said MCI, adding it launched a code of practice for online safety in July 2023.

Under this code, social media companies have to put in place protections against harmful online content for all Singaporeans, such as age-appropriate policies for accounts belonging to children and parental tools.

Beyond legislation, MCI said it partners social media services and community members on public education.

“Together, we seek to nurture responsible and empathetic digital users across all age groups,” it said.