A 39-year-old man was arrested for allegedly using fake OneService Lite QR codes to obtain the personal details of his victims.
The Singapore Police Force (SOF) and the Municipal Services Office (MSO) said on 3 February that they were alerted to fake QR codes appearing at the lift lobbies around Bukit Batok.
Police officers from the Jurong Police Division then followed up with their investigations and established the perpetrator’s identity.
The man was then arrested on 26 January and is believed to have been involved in similar cases around Singapore.
The fake QR codes were passed off as OneService (OS) Lite QR codes, and the fraudulent website that the QR codes were linked to has since been removed.
For contextual purposes, the OneService app is a one-stop platform that allowed residents to give feedback to various government agencies about municipal issues, such as issues and problems relating to an estate and town.
The town councils have since been instructed by the MSO to perform checks to verify the OS Lite QR codes in their towns.
At the time of writing, police investigations are still underway.
MSO and the police force urged members of the public to be alert and vigilant when accessing websites, and to check their authenticity before providing their personal particulars.
“QR codes and links associated with OneService always lead to websites on the “gov.sg” domain (in this case, www.oneservice.gov.sg). All OneService feedback channels, including OS Lite, are also designed to work without feedback providers having to provide any personally identifiable information.”
“OS Lite users who want to be updated about their cases need only provide their mobile number (which MSO will verify via a one-time password), and how they would like to be addressed. It is not necessary to provide a full name. Lastly, genuine OS Lite QR codes are A4-sized and printed on wall-mounted, hard acrylic board (they are not stickers).”