As the Ministry of Home Affairs ( MHA ) works to standardize the sender IDs used by various departments in the Home Team, the current police emergency SMS sender ID,” 71999,” will be discontinued and replaced with “70999” as of October 1.  ,
The move, according to the Singapore Police Force ( SPF ) in a press release on Friday ( Sep 27 ), will also help make it easier to recognize and recall SMSes from the Home Team and help protect the public from scammers who impersonate Home Team officers.
For example, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) uses the SMS receiver ID “70995” as part of its 995 disaster phone service.  ,
The Home Team has seven sections, including the SCDF and the SPF.
The officers emergency SMS company started in 2016 as part of Singapore’s SGSecure activity. It makes it possible for people to contact the police when they need help from police in emergencies where it’s illegal to have phone conversations or for those who are blind, mute, or have speech issues.
SPF pointed out that since July 1, Singapore government organizations have been using a single SMS sender ID -gov. sg ,- for one-way contact with the government. But, emergency services such as the police incident SMS require two-way connections.
Members of the public are advised to submit details via i-Witness or use the e-services accessible on the SPF site or Police@SG app to file a police report in non-emergency conditions, according to SPF.