Singapore’s Indian-origin minister will get extortion letter with pretend ‘obscene’ images | World News

Balakrishnan mentioned in a Fb publish that a number of different MPs and himself obtained letters containing a “pretend distasteful picture accompanied by a risk”.

“This conduct is deplorable and completely opposite to the values and good practices that we try to inculcate in our society. Now we have filed police reviews and can take acceptable authorized motion,” he mentioned.

There have been over 70 police reviews since March about such extortion letters, in response to a Channel News Asia report on Saturday.

The letters warned of “threatening penalties” except they contacted the e-mail tackle supplied.

If the victims contacted the e-mail tackle, they’d be requested to switch cash to forestall “compromising images and movies” of themselves from being leaked and uncovered on social media, the police mentioned.

Balakrishnan mentioned: “On this age of deep fakes and scams, we should take a powerful collective stand towards such conduct.”

“Inside was a distasteful photograph the place my face was digitally manipulated onto one of many figures, accompanied by an extortion demand,” he wrote on Fb on Saturday.

He mentioned that whereas it isn’t unusual for public figures to face extortion scams, the rise of “deepfakes” makes it “more durable to discern actuality from fiction”.

“With available instruments, anybody can create deepfake content material inside minutes,” he added.

The police suggested members of the general public to disregard any directions to provoke contact or make transfers in the event that they obtained such letters.

They’re additionally requested to report the matter to the police instantly and put the letter in a separate storage bag at hand over to the police.

Investigations are ongoing, in response to the Channel report.