KUALA LUMPUR: Plans are afoot to tighten laws to better protect Malaysians against the growing threat of online scams costing Malaysians billions in losses, says Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
This includes the possibility of introducing laws to hold banks responsible for losses suffered by online scam victims due to the banks' own negligence and disregard of stipulated regulations.
"There are victims who are truly oblivious (that they are being scammed) and that is why we need to tighten the laws.
"It is hoped when it (draft law) is ready, it can be tabled in next year’s Parliament session," the Prime Minister said when responding to a supplementary question raised by Datuk Seri Doris Sophia Brodi (GPS-Sri Aman) in Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday (Dec 3).
Anwar was referring to the Online Safety Bill, which is aimed at combating online bullying, fraud and other cybercrimes.
Doris wanted to know if there are plans to enact specific laws, such as the Scam Bill in Singapore, to better protect Malaysians against online scams that have become so widespread.
Earlier, Anwar expressed his concerns over the sheer volume of losses suffered due to various forms of online scams when answering a question raised by Suhaizan Kaiat (PH-Pulai).
"Overall, online scams had resulted in RM286.2bil in losses in Asean while RM1.224bil in losses were recorded between January and October this year in Malaysia.
"This includes online scams, telecommunication scams, e-trading scams, e-financing scams, love scams and non-existence loans and investment online scams," he added.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that the incidents of mule accounts being used for such scams were also alarming.
"Although SemakMule has been successful, the figures are still worrying.
"This is because as of Oct 31 this year, a total of 181,628 telephone numbers, 222,092 bank accounts and 1,395 companies were recorded in SemakMule for being involved in online scams," he said.
Launched in January 2019, SemakMule is an online application and website to identify accounts used by scammers.
Anwar pointed out that the portal has helped prevent Malaysians falling victims to online scams.
"Based on its report, out of 32,066,000 million searches made, 22,200,984 million were revealed as scam calls.
"This meant that there were attempts to transfer their money to mule accounts but many were saved due to the use of the portal," he added.
Other preventive efforts, Anwar said, included blocking 1.4 billion dubious telephone calls and 1.2 billion unsolicited SMS.
"The Communications Ministry through the Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has also successfully terminated 118,184 telephone lines while blocking access to 9,474 fake websites which were identified," he added.
Meanwhile, Anwar said that he agreed in principle with a suggestion by Nurul Amin Hamid (PN-Padang Terap) on making banks responsible for losses suffered by victims of online scams.
Amin said that such a move was recently implemented in the United Kingdom through its mandatory recent recruitment reimbursement where victims were reimbursed their money within five days.
Anwar pointed out that the regulation mentioned by Amin only came into play if the banks in the UK were negligent or had failed to monitor their accounts according to regulations.
"As such the bank must pay for the losses and I agree with this principle for its use here.
"This is a possibility based on a study being carried out by the Treasury's secretary-general which includes tightening matters so that the banks are also responsible if they were genuinely careless in monitoring and ensuring that regulations are adhered to," he added.
Apart from Malaysia, Anwar said that the issue of online scams is also being addressed by Asean.
