Halimah expresses concern over fake Facebook account

SINGAPORE — Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob has lodged a police report over a bogus Facebook account set up in her name to seek money, an act she deemed to be of “grave concern”.

Not only was the culprit “stealing her identity”, he or she did so in an attempt to cheat innocent members of the public of their money, Mdm Halimah told the media today (Dec 20) on the sidelines of a community event.

“It’s a scam, so that’s of grave concern to me because people may be thinking that I’m raising those funds,” she said. “If I hadn’t (been notified) and they succeeded with their scam, it would be really quite bad ... I hope nobody has been duped.”

She was alerted to the hoax by her husband’s friend a day after it was set up, and saw screenshots of it.

“It was using my pictures, pretending to be me ... saying that I was in trouble and needed money (for) a consignment of goods coming in. Can you imagine? It’s so ridiculous,” she said.

Mdm Halimah alerted her Facebook followers to the fake account on Thursday night. In a post on her Facebook account, she wrote that Facebook had been notified and sought the public’s help to inform her of similar hoaxes.

She made a police report the next day. The fake account has since been removed, and Mdm Halimah has been working with Facebook to get her account and a separate Facebook page she holds in her capacity as a politician marked as authentic.

“I hope that the police will look into it because I’m really worried that with the widespread use of the Internet and technology, this could be a trap for people who don’t know ... some of the downsides of technology that we really need to be careful about,” she said.