Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety (CATOS) to Receive S$50 Million in Funding

CENTRE FOR ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES IN ONLINE SAFETY (CATOS) TO RECEIVE S$50 MILLION IN FUNDING TO ENHANCE ONLINE TRUST AND SAFETY IN SINGAPORE

This sum includes a S$30 million boost, which supplements the initial S$20 million that was announced by the Government in January 2024

SINGAPORE, 15 MAY 2024 - The Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety (CATOS) was officially launched by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information & Minister-in-charge of Smart Nation and Cybersecurity, at the inaugural Online Trust & Safety (OTS) Forum on 15 May 2024. CATOS will receive an additional S$30 million investment from the National Research Foundation, Singapore (NRF) to boost its ability to enhance online trust and safety in Singapore, supplementing the initial S$20 million funding announced in January 2024 to set up CATOS.

2. Speaking at the inaugural OTS Forum, Minister Josephine Teo announced that CATOS will receive a total of S$50 million in funding over five years under the Smart Nation and Digital Economy domain of Singapore's Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan. This is in line with Singapore's commitment to advancing online trust and safety and building a safer online ecosystem for Singapore users.

3. Hosted by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), CATOS was set up to strengthen Singapore's overall capacity to monitor and tackle the growing array of harms in the online space, including online discrimination and hate speech, misinformation and disinformation, and AI-generated harms such as deepfakes. Since its inception, CATOS has been working with a wide range of partners from diverse sectors, encompassing government, industry, academia, and civil society, to develop and deploy advanced technological solutions to address online harms, including those which are unique to Singapore. The technological solutions developed by CATOS will complement existing regulatory efforts and ground-up initiatives to build a safer online ecosystem for Singapore users.

Advancing Our Pursuit of Online Trust and Safety

4. The additional S$30 million investment will primarily support the following new initiatives by CATOS:

a) Developing new technological capabilities to detect online harms that can be harmful to individuals and our society. This includes online hate, discrimination, harm to health and well-being, and threats to personal and community safety. CATOS will develop advanced technologies to identify and detect online content that is unhealthy or unsafe, or that contains hate or discrimination, which could undermine our racial and religious harmony.

b) Continuing investment in research to stay ahead of evolving challenges in the OTS space. The online space evolves rapidly, and our ability to respond must not fall behind. CATOS will seek to foster innovation and attract talent through a range of initiatives. This includes issuing open calls for research proposals to solicit high-quality proposals and ideas, to address emerging problems and threats in the OTS space. CATOS will also engage the community through various initiatives, such as hackathons and innovation challenges.

c) Establishing a sandbox environment to test and refine new technologies aimed at combating online harms while safeguarding the integrity and security of online platforms. The CATOS sandbox will provide developers with a controlled virtual space to testbed solutions to address various harms online. This sandbox will facilitate rapid experimentation of new technologies in real-world scenarios, without compromising the underlying operational environment. For solutions that have been proven to be effective, CATOS will work with developers to facilitate their deployment through licensing or service agreements.

5. Enhancing online trust and safety requires a collaborative approach, and CATOS has been actively fostering collaborations with key stakeholders in the OTS ecosystem. At this forum, CATOS announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Adobe to explore the implementation of content provenance technologies in Singapore. The MoU aims to enhance the authenticity of digital content by providing a way to help ensure its authenticity and reliability via tracing its origin. This is part of CATOS' work on developing plug-ins and software solutions to make it more seamless to include content provenance in publishing articles or images.

6. To mitigate the spread of misinformation, CATOS also works with community partners like CheckMate, a ground-up, volunteer-driven initiative aimed at countering misinformation and scams propagated via private messaging channels.

CheckMate has built a system where users can forward dubious information to a WhatsApp number and receive checks in response. CATOS will partner CheckMate to explore tools that can help their volunteers fact-check more quickly and effectively, such as CATOS' in-house fact-checking technologies. This will help CheckMate better combat misinformation and its associated harms.

7. Dr Yang Yinping, Centre Director for CATOS said, "The Online Trust and Safety landscape faces rapidly evolving threats, and it is critical for us to have innovative solutions to stay ahead. An ecosystem approach is needed, and CATOS will work closely with our partners from academia, industry, the public sector, and non-governmental organisations to develop advanced technological solutions that will contribute to realising Singapore's vision for a safer online space for all."

8. Organised by CATOS, the one-day OTS Forum brought together more than 250 local and international OTS experts and thought leaders in policy, education, and technology to exchange experiences and insights on the latest trends and developments in online trust and safety.

Jointly issued by the Ministry of Communications and Information and A*STAR

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