SINGAPORE: The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) on Saturday (Jan 11) said it has suspended an electronic service that allows Singapore residents to change residential addresses online.

This comes after the authority identified about 80 cases of unauthorised attempts to change registered residential addresses via an “others” option – which allows the change of address by a proxy – available on the online service.

The perpetrators, who were using stolen or compromised Singpass accounts, succeeded in changing the addresses in about 75 per cent of these attempts to likely “generate more mule accounts to use scams and other cybercrimes”, it added.

ICA has suspended the electronic change of address (eCOA) service from Saturday morning to implement additional security measures and prevent further abuse.

“We will conduct a review in the next two days and will likely bring up the service on Jan 14,” ICA said in a news release. 

“The ‘others’ module will remain unavailable until ICA has implemented further measures to safely allow the change of address by a proxy.”

HOW THE ELECTRONIC SERVICE WORKS

The electronic service was first introduced in October 2020 to allow Singapore residents, including those who reside overseas, to report a change of residential address to ICA online.

Individuals can make a change to their own, or others’ residential addresses by logging into the online service with their Singpass accounts under three options: Myself, myself and my family members, and others.

ICA noted that the “others” module was introduced in 2020 for those who are not digitally savvy to get assistance in updating their residential addresses online from proxies with Singpass accounts.

An average of 900 Singapore residents change their residential address through proxies every month, according to the authority.