Emerging digital technology, alternative data and financial inclusion in Cambodia – Southeast Asia Globe

By:
On:
In: Finance, South-East Asia

Securing a loan can be a life-changing event, allowing people to access the capital necessary to start a business, buy a home, and invest in their future. But for Cambodia’s large underbanked and unbanked population, difficulty in accessing financial services, and an absence of the financial data used to assess creditworthiness, can make getting a loan challenging. According to the National Bank of Cambodia, only 59 percent of the adult population have access to formal financial services, leaving 41 percent either accessing informal financial services or no financial services at all.

However, developments in Cambodia’s lending landscape offer cause for optimism. The explosion in Cambodia’s fintech ecosystem, paired with the growing potential of alternative-data credit frameworks, could provide a path towards financial inclusion for those previously left out of the conversation.

Acccording to Ms. Phal-Chalm Theany, Secretary General of the Association of Banks in Cambodia, “Alternative data has tremendous potential for contributing to financial inclusion by complementing traditional financial data that banks have. They range from information on mobile wallet transactions to information on user behavior on digital platforms that can be utilized for risk assessment of individuals and MSMEs.” 

Most financial institutions use debt repayment history and bank and credit files to determine the creditworthiness of potential borrowers. Driven by digitalisation and developments in technologies such as data analytics and machine learning, alternative credit scoring is based on any form of non-traditional information that can provide insights into the ability and propensity of borrowers to pay back loans. Telecom and utility payment histories, as well as digital footprints and mobile data, can all be utilised to assess creditworthiness within these frameworks.

Banks in Cambodia are increasingly looking to tap alternative data for serving the unbanked and underbanked.

“Data in Cambodia is still very much fragmented and held across multiple organizations and institutions,” said Mr. Mach Chan, CEO of Phillip Bank in Cambodia. “Many people do not have formal loans from financial institutions. This makes it challenging to predict their repayment capacities. If Phillip Bank can easily assess aggregated alternative data, we can better assess a borrower’s creditworthiness based on their social and behavioral indicators, and spending patterns and habits. This allows us to form a more complete picture of the borrower’s risk profile, with opportunities to offer cheaper loans to less risky customers, regardless of whether they are banked. Additionally, many SMEs are not formally registered making lending a challenge. If banks can access the payments data of these MSMEs, the financial Industry will be more confident to support the needs of these businesses.”

Across Southeast Asia, governments, banks and key stakeholders are becoming increasingly interested in the potential of alternative data as a tool to expand the scope and accessibility of financial services.

A Southeast Asia-focused report published by the World Bank Group in 2021 highlights four new data types that have emerged as part of the evolving digital ecosystem, and which can aid credit decision-making: mobile operator and app-based data, digital payments, e-commerce data and enterprise-tech (business-performance) data. Such alternative data has also been highlighted by the Asian Development Bank as one of the key areas for driving financial inclusion in Southeast Asia. 

Across the region, governments, banks and key stakeholders are becoming increasingly interested in the potential of alternative data as a tool to expand the scope and accessibility of financial services.

In December 2022, the National Credit Bureau of Thailand announced the plan to launch a non-credit data centre by consolidating such data into NCB’s existing credit database with initial application of utility payment data from Electricity and Water Utilities.

In Indonesia, Experian collaborated with a telecom company to uplift financial inclusion by using data from telco to provide advanced credit assessment to empower unbanked and underbanked.

In the Philippines, Credit Information Centre (CIC) is working on an open policy to enable accessing entities to utilize credit bureau data with alternative data to come up with a complete picture of a borrower’s credit profile.

In the context of Cambodia, utility bill payment and telco payment data can serve as important sources of alternative credit data. Moreover, with rapid digitalization along with adoption of digital payments, there should be enormous potential to tap a wide array of alternative data on payments and digital footprints. Around the world, such data have served as key drivers for digital financial inclusion. 

With a rise in digital financial service providers, digital payment catalysts and e-commerce in Cambodia, massive amounts of alternative data are already generated at present. Given this scenario, it is important to have an organized ecosystem to collect, process and utilize such alternative credit data.

On the regulatory front, the National Bank of Cambodia revised the prakas on credit reporting in 2020, enabling Credit Bureau Cambodia (CBC) to collect alternative data along with traditional credit data to support financial institutions to strengthen credit risk assessment capabilities.  

CBC was established in 2012 with the support of the National Bank of Cambodia, the Association of Banks   in Cambodia and other key stakeholders in the sector to manage a fair and transparent credit market in support of the nation’s economic development. Since then, CBC has become the leading body providing financial information in the country. Although currently CBC only manages traditional data reported by member banks and financial institutions, it is preparing an ambitious roadmap to collaborate with multiple sectors in the country. Its plan is to establish a comprehensive alternative credit data ecosystem that can work together with the traditional credit data ecosystem for social and economic benefits to Cambodians.

“I would say Cambodia stands a decade ahead of other emerging market economies because of the Credit Bureau and the lending environment,” explained Gordon Peters, co-founder and CEO of fintech firm Boost, which harnesses popular social media platform such as Facebook and Telegram to enable access to finance. “CBC has done a great job of collecting, collating and sharing data on the financial lives of customers,” he said. “I think that is a huge unlock.”

For Peters and company, CBC establishes a level of legitimacy and security that has benefited Cambodia’s financial sector and allowed his firm to fill a gap in the ecosystem. Banks and financial institutions have a high degree of confidence and trust in the role of CBC as a key financial data infrastructure in the country. For a company that already manages credit history data of more than 7 million individuals and businesses, expanding the capabilities to manage alternative data reporting system looks plausible.

Ms. Phal-Chalm Theany, Secretary General of the Association of Banks in Cambodia

Ms. Theany elaborated: “CBC is a data centre for the financial sector that collects data from banks and financial institutions, stores and analyses them for the purposes of credit scoring for those financial institutions. Where each bank and financial institution may have its own data, CBC has the financial information for the whole sector.

“With strong capabilities in data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, CBC is uniquely positioned to harness alternative data from diverse data sources to enable banks and financial institutions to conduct better assessment of the profile of the unbanked (mainly women and farmers) and informal small businesses, estimate income with more precision. This shall enable financial institutions to offer more appropriate credits or other financial services in the absence of a financial footprint, credit histories or property guarantees.”

Mr. Chan added: “CBC could spearhead the aggregation of payments, telco and utilities data. These datasets are then fed into a prospective customer’s credit score. Over the past few years, with NBC’s Bakong as a key enabler, we’ve seen a rapid digitization of payments. We believe that when assessing customer creditworthiness, payments data is just as important as borrowing and repayment data, and should be prioritized. At the same time, CBC would need to seek the cooperation of their member financial institutions to provide these datasets. For SMEs, we also see data from GDT as an important asset. If CBC could connect and obtain data with GDT, it will allow the banks to form better assessments for clean loans, spurring economic activity.”

Currently, CBC provides K-Score, an algorithmic credit score (ACS). ACS uses machine-learning algorithms to analyse massive data sets to produce credit scores without traditional financial information. This is the only industry level credit score available in Cambodia. First launched in 2015, CBC did a major revamp of the algorithms in 2020 to keep up with the evolving changes in the market landscape. Today, K-Score is available to all member financial institutions of CBC and (via CBC’s mobile app) to all individuals as well.

Example of a K-Score from CBC

A 2023 report in the Asian Journal of Law and Science states: “ACS is the tip of the spear of the global campaign for financial inclusion, which aims at including unbanked and underbanked citizens in financial markets and delivering them financial services, including credit, at fair and affordable prices.” The study outlines the wide ranging benefits of ACS and alternative data as tools to benefit individuals across Southeast Asia who lack access to financial services.

In the Cambodian context, Credit Bureau of Cambodia is well positioned to lead the way in leveraging these tools. To make sense of the massive datasets now available thanks to digitalisation, CBC utilises a host of ACS tools. Machine-learning algorithms and other artificial intelligence mechanisms allow for the analysis of data at a scale that was previously impossible. Risk analysis profiles and loan portfolios that are regularly updated and refined are just a couple of the ways these technologies can be leveraged using alternative data. While the power of these tools is certainly important, CBC’s experience in the sector — and its standing as the leading institution managing, analysing and providing financial data — are the most compelling reasons for the adoption of alternative data schemes in Cambodia.

“As we are entering our second decade of credit reporting in Cambodia, CBC is committed to being a trusted (element in the) national financial infrastructure for providing alternative credit data, to strengthen credit risk assessment for our 190-plus member financial institutions, and to expand access to credit for the new-to-credit consumer segments. We are very open to collaborate with alternative data providers such as telcos, utilities and payment service providers to harness information not found in traditional credit reports, to help more Cambodians obtain access to mainstream financial services,” explained CBC CEO, Oeur Sothearoath.

As CBC leverages its established presence in the financial sector, a growing pool of innovators is working with the agency to develop and facilitate the alternative data ecosystem.

Continue Reading

IN FOCUS: Underage and on dating apps – what is being done to protect minors, and is it enough?

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

The Grindr spokesperson also said the app is classed in the 17+ category on both Apple and Google Play App stores, which means parental control settings in both operating systems can be used to prevent the app from being downloaded.

She added that Grindr is “always willing” to work with Apple and Google to develop better age gating technology that respects users’ privacy while improving safety.

As for why Grindr does not require users to upload a profile photo or picture ID, the spokesperson said that user concerns are a key reason for this. Users can privately share photos using private albums.

She added: “Since the founding of Grindr, many of our users have had very real needs to maintain privacy and discretion on the app, ranging from highly personal circumstances to government persecution in more than 60 countries around the world where it is tragically still illegal to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Nevertheless, she said Grindr “works constantly to eliminate illicit activity from the app”, including using AI and machine learning “in a variety of ways to promote safety, including monitoring chats to detect potential underage users”.

On top of that, Grindr has an external moderation team of more than 150 experts to monitor chats and identify issues such as underage users and those who may try to target them. It also reports activity involving minors to organisations committed to protecting children, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US.

CNA also asked OkCupid, Tinder and Grindr about whether they were open to partnerships like the one that dating app Bumble recently formed with the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), a gender equality advocacy group in Singapore.

The partnership, announced in September, allows AWARE to report harmful or dangerous people to Bumble’s dedicated member safety team.

Through this new tip line, these people can receive a warning or even have their profiles removed from the platform.

In a press release, Bumble said this is aimed at reducing the burden on victim-survivors of sexual violence and technology-facilitated abuse to report these harms, while ensuring that dangerous individuals are proactively removed from Bumble.

OkCupid, Tinder and Grindr did not directly respond to queries about this.

“THERE’S REALLY NO VERIFICATION”

Notwithstanding dating apps’ various measures to keep the underaged from using them, some users told CNA how easy it was to sign up when they were below the age of 18.

Ms Li, 23, is no stranger to such apps. She first started using them as a 17-year-old.

“There’s really no verification, so I just put my age as 18. I had almost everything actually, I had Bumble, OkCupid, Hinge, Tinder.”

Feeling guilty for lying about her age, Ms Li wrote in her profile that she was 17, going on 18. Despite doing so, the apps did not detect that an underage user was on their platform. 

In fact, Ms Li said her profile became more popular after she updated her bio. “Once I put that, then I actually got more matches.”

She added that she was far from the only underaged teen on dating apps.

“Pretty much every girl I knew that was in upper-secondary school would have been on the more common apps, like OkCupid.” They would send profiles to each other to see who their friends matched with, she said.

Some of the men who matched with her on the apps were 10 years her senior, but it did not raise any alarm bells back then. She said she felt lucky about it, thinking that these older men were taking a chance on her.

It was especially gratifying given that some boys in her age group still shunned girls. “A man likes me – he isn’t immature like the boys,” she said.

“At that age, it was very, very easy for girls to be looking for that attention and validation.”

Continue Reading

Shorter ticket lines, more interactive displays on the cards for Singapore’s tourist attractions

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

DATA ANALYTICS, SELF- SERVICE TICKETINGKIOSKS

Self-service ticketing shops with facial recognition capabilities have been set up at indoor skydiving interest iFly Singapore in Sentosa to manage host check-ins as well as the research and pay processes for photos and videos taken during the trip. &nbsp,
 
In order to observe and compile visitor data, such as demographic profiles, footfall, and explore times, iFly Singapore also uses data analytical tools. These data are then used for qualified sales strategies and marketing campaigns to boost visitorship and increase average customer spend. &nbsp,
 
People used to wait at the reception desk for 10 to 15 minutes just to inquire about this waiver variety, according to Lawrence Koh, the founder and CEO of iFly Singapore. ” How do you fill it up?” and so forth. However, the majority of them will have already registered online at this point and are only there to assess in and get a tag.
 
A customer relationship management system is used at the domestic park Kiztopia, which has numerous stores, to gather data on customers ‘ prior payments, website visits, and wedding with marketing emails.
 
As a result, Kiztopia was able to use the information to create targeted selling campaigns for their various user segments. &nbsp,
 
Additionally, it is investing in the universe system, a idea that many people may not be familiar with at the moment.
 
People have heard about it, but Heidi Tian, the chairman and chief executive officer of Kiztopia, said that in order to truly experience it and use it. &nbsp,
 
” The parents of our clients are our objective.” There is always some balancing on how much parents are ready for their children to be exposed to like interactive games because we also want the kids to play in the metaverse.

Continue Reading

Going undercover to reveal people smugglers’ sales tactics

By:
On:
In: Asia
On 29 February, 2020, thousands of refugees and migrants arrived at the Pazarkule border crossing between Greece and TurkeyGetty Images
By Reha Kansara, Samrah Fatima & Jasmin Dyer
BBC Trending, BBC Urdu & BBC Newsnight

“There is nothing to be worried about. Whether they’re 12 or 18 years old, we take guys of these ages too.”

A people smuggler in Quetta, who arranges illegal routes out of Pakistan, is explaining his business model to an undercover BBC journalist. For 2.5m Pakistani rupees ($9000; £7,500), a young man can arrive in Europe “safe and sound” in approximately three weeks, he says, by crossing the border into Iran on foot and then travelling by road via Turkey to Italy. His tone is reassuring.

“He should keep snacks. He should definitely carry good quality shoes, and two or three sets of clothes. That’s it. He can buy water from Quetta. He will call upon reaching Quetta and a guy will come and receive him.”

The smuggler – Azam – claims hundreds of migrants cross the Pakistan border into Iran every day. He downplays the risks to our reporter, who is posing as a man wanting to bring his brother to the UK.

With inflation soaring in the country and the Pakistani rupee plummeting in value, many people are looking to move. Pakistani authorities have told the BBC nearly 13,000 people left Pakistan to go to Libya or Egypt in the first six months of 2023, compared with close to 7,000 in the whole of 2022.

Often the journeys they take are dangerous. In June, hundreds of migrants died after a cramped fishing vessel sank off the coast of Greece. At least 350 Pakistanis were thought to be on board.

“Even if he gets caught [along the way], he is only going to end up back at home. No-one is going to kidnap him and ask for ransom,” Azam says.

But migrants who attempt to travel via Libya can fall prey to militias and criminal gangs. One Pakistani man we spoke to, who used a people smuggler to travel to Italy, says he was kidnapped and imprisoned for three months in Libya.

Saeed (not his real name) says he was only released after his family paid a ransom of $2,500 (£2,000).

This video can not be played

To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.

‘DM for game’

Many smugglers are operating in plain sight on mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok – through accounts that have tens of thousands of followers.

Since May, the BBC has been monitoring social media accounts promoting illegal migration routes. We have found that the smugglers’ tactics are concealed by a web of euphemisms that enable them to sidestep content moderation and law enforcement. They arrange trips and payments privately via direct messages and WhatsApp.

Code words like “dunki” and “game” are used to promote illegal routes to Europe. “Dunki” refers to boat crossings and “game” describes the journeys that migrants will take from start to finish.

BBC Sounds

You can listen to “BBC Trending: Exposing people smugglers” on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds

The three most common routes from Pakistan transit through Turkey, Iran or Libya before reaching their final destination in Europe.

Since the Greek migrant boat disaster, people smugglers we monitored have been increasingly promoting “taxi games” – shorthand for routes by road through Eastern Europe – as the favoured smuggling method.

Smugglers’ social media accounts post videos of groups of migrants hiding in woods and running into minivans, with agents’ names and mobile phone numbers superimposed on top. On WhatsApp, customers and “agents” exchange messages about the next “game” in group chats with hundreds of members.

Azam specialises in “taxi games”, claiming they are safer than sea routes. But there are risks to those land routes too.

The UNHCR – the UN’s refugee agency – says freezing temperatures in winter as migrants attempt to cross borders on foot, as well as road accidents, have resulted in deaths.

Graphic showing Saeed's route to Turkey

1px transparent line

Five other smugglers we spoke to also recommended “taxi routes”. One said he could get someone to the UK from France for £1,000 ($1,228).

We put our evidence to Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, and TikTok – that their platforms are being used to promote illegal people smuggling.

Meta took down all links to the Facebook groups and pages we flagged to them, but did not take down the profiles attached to them. It did not remove WhatsApp groups, because its policy of end-to-end encryption protects privacy and does not allow for moderation.

TikTok took down the links to the accounts we alerted them to. It says the company “has zero tolerance for content that facilitates human smuggling” and “removed accounts and content that violate their policies”.

Man with a beard looks through a small window in a metal door

‘Journey of death’

Saeed left his town in Pakistani-administered Kashmir almost a year ago because of a lack of employment opportunities for young men in his area – and clashes along the border with Indian-administered Kashmir. He lived very close to the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the contested region – but has been in Italy for 10 months.

He says he was influenced to come to Europe by a combination of TikTok videos he saw online and by a friend who had left Pakistan a few months before him.

“I heard that it’s very simple to come here and it would take about 15-20 days. But it was all a lie. It took me more than seven months,” he says.

Saeed is awaiting the outcome of his asylum claim in Italy and says he now regrets taking the illegal route, calling it “a journey of death”. But he regularly posts videos on TikTok of his new life in Italy.

A few clips document his route from Pakistan, mostly showing an excited young man on his journey. These upbeat videos follow a TikTok trend which many young Pakistani men like him, who arrive in Europe, have participated in.

In one video captioned “Pakistan to Libya”, a friend he travelled with films them both, selfie-style, sitting on a plane, smiling.

He says that it’s “just a form of art” to post videos like this and argues they are “not a true reflection of society”.

Two weeks after our undercover journalist first contacts the smuggler, we call him again – this time revealing we are BBC journalists.

When we challenge Azam about the dangers of the illegal routes he is promoting, he hangs up.

Related Topics

More on this story

Continue Reading

Managing director stabbed pregnant wife to death after inaccurate company report showed poor numbers

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

Warning: This story mentions suicide and contains descriptions of a suicide attempt.

SINGAPORE: A managing director of a training company who suffered insomnia after mistakenly thinking his business was failing stabbed his wife and their unborn child to death.

David Brian Chow Kwok-Hun began ruminating on the financial health of his company after receiving a half-year financial report from an accounting employee that showed low-performing numbers.

The numbers were later found to be inaccurate. Despite his family encouraging him and trying to seek help for him, Chow made up his mind to kill himself and his wife, in order to “save” her and their unborn child from any debtors.

After another night of insomnia, he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed his pregnant wife to death.

He then tried to kill himself but was unsuccessful and decided to call the police to avoid implicating his father who was on his way to fetch him.

Chow, a 35-year-old Singaporean, pleaded guilty on Thursday (Oct 26) to one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

He had been suffering from adjustment disorder with anxious and depressed mood at the time of the offence and qualified for the partial defence of diminished responsibility.

The court heard that Chow and the victim, 30-year-old Isabel Elizabeth Francis, registered their marriage in 2019 and lived together in a flat since May 2021.

Chow was the managing director of KnowledgeTree Training Centre, a training company providing workforce skills qualifications and other courses.

In December 2021, he asked for the company’s half-year financial report from his accounting staff. 

When he received the report, he went through the numbers and felt there must have been an error, as the numbers were unusually low. He asked the employee to check again and get back.

In January 2022, the accounting staff got back to Chow and confirmed that the numbers were accurate.

It was later revealed that the numbers were wrong and were not an accurate representation of the company’s financial health.

DESCENT INTO TROUBLED THOUGHTS

Chow began thinking that the company was not doing well and would probably run into failure. This was despite the fact that it had been profitable, racking up S$1 million (US$729,000) in earlier profits.

Between Jan 5 and Jan 7 in 2022, Chow began losing sleep. He was worried and stressed over the company finances and slept only one to two hours per night on average. His family members, wife and colleagues noticed his behaviour.

When Chow spoke to the manager of his company about finances on Jan 8, 2022, the manager saw that he looked stressed and noted that the company was still making a profit.

Chow’s mother and brother also met him to talk about the finances and assured him that the company was still making a profit.

Because of what the company earned over the years, it was in a financially sound position to weather the next two years. 

His parents also had dinner with him to encourage him and assure him that everything would be fine.

Chow’s wife booked a counselling session with a counsellor to help him deal with his work stress, but Chow continued losing sleep over the finances.

He began seeing things in his head if he closed his eyes, including images of soldiers marching, a devil and “a scary dog”.

His family members continued trying to reach out to Chow. His father made an appointment for him to see a psychiatrist and arranged to ferry him to work.

Chow tried listing down his problems on a counselling worksheet and felt slightly better, but still could not sleep.

At about 1am on Jan 11, 2022, Chow began pacing up and down the corridor of his flat in Ang Mo Kio.

He continued ruminating over his business concerns and looking at the LinkedIn profiles of business competitors.

He logged into an e-learning portal and realised his employee still had not rectified an issue that was earlier pointed out, and was concerned that his mother would scold the employee, who would leave.

The managing director was also worried about his employees quitting and losing confidence in him, as they had noticed him breaking down.

THE DAY OF THE KILLING

From 3am to 4am that day, he began having suicidal thoughts – the first time he had such thoughts, court documents showed. He was worried that his wife would feel shame from having a husband who took his own life.

If his business failed, he fretted that others would go after his wife and unborn child.

The man felt he had to do something, and thought of killing his wife to spare her and their unborn child, so they could “go to heaven” while he killed himself, said the prosecution.

At about 5am, Chow took a knife from the kitchen and headed to the master bedroom, where his wife lay sleeping on her side.

He turned her and thrust the knife into her abdomen, telling her: “Sorry, I have no way out.”

He then stabbed her multiple times in her head, neck, abdomen and back until she stopped moving.

After killing his wife, Kwok checked the peephole of his main door to make sure no one had been alerted by his wife’s screams.

He tried various ways to end his life, including stabbing himself with another knife and asking the “devil to take him”, said the prosecution, adding that he also took an assortment of tablets.

Chow realised his father had sent him a message saying he was on his way to fetch him. Chow decided to call the police to tell them that he had killed his wife, as he did not want to implicate his father.

He also did not want his father to see the state that he and his wife were in, so he called his father and asked him not to come over. After calling the police, Chow unlocked the main door and lay down to wait.

The police and paramedics arrived shortly after and the victim was pronounced dead while Chow was taken to hospital and arrested.

An autopsy of Chow’s wife found that she had died of stab wounds to her back and neck. She had suffered 10 stab wounds and five incised wounds on her head, neck and torso, two of which were fatal.

An autopsy was also done on the foetus, which was found to be a girl of about 15 weeks’ gestational age. It would not survive at such an age if it had been born, medical reports stated.

Chow was assessed by an associate consultant from the Institute of Mental Health, who found that he was suffering from adjustment disorder with anxious and depressed mood at the time of the offence.

While the IMH doctor and the defence psychiatrist had different diagnoses of the subtype of adjustment disorder Chow suffered, they agreed that he had symptoms of anxious and depressed mood.

Chow was found to have catastrophic thinking, fearing that he would go bankrupt and was overwhelmed by the premonition that people would go after his wife if he did.

However, his impulse control was not impaired, as he had performed goal-directed actions in killing his wife, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Jiang Ke-Yue.

Mr Jiang said Chow had penned his thoughts in the counselling sheet prior to the killing, tested the sharpness of the knife and covered his wife’s mouth before checking if anyone heard her screams.

He was not of unsound mind and was fit to plead.

The prosecution is seeking nine to 12 years’ jail for Chow.

Chow is defended by Mr Shashi Nathan, Mr Jeremy Mark Pereira and Mr U Sudharshanraj Naidu from Withers KhattarWong. His family members attended the court hearing.

Continue Reading

Teacher creates fake social media profiles to talk to teens about sex, sends victims obscene material

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

SINGAPORE: A secondary school teacher who enjoyed discussing their physical experiences with people made the decision to create two fictitious social media profiles to do so.

Six victims, the majority of whom were in their teens, were tricked into having sex with Tay Tong Wei by pretending to be a male or female student. In addition, & nbsp,

Additionally, 36-year-old Tay sent them vulgar video or pictures that he claimed were of himself. & nbsp,

Tay admitted guilt to seven counts of electronic distribution of pornographic material and encouraging a female prey to deliver lewd videos of herself. When he is sentenced, another 40 charges of a similar essence may be taken into account. & nbsp,

Tay was a secondary school teacher at the time of the offenses. He now works as a personal tutor. & nbsp,

At the time of the crimes, the six victims — three men and three women — were between the ages of 15 and 20. To guard their identities, none of them can be named. & nbsp,

The prosecutor was informed that Tay discovered in 2013 or 2014 that talking to others about their physical experiences gave him sexual pleasure. He created two fictitious social media profiles to do this, nbsp.

One was a Jasmin-related Facebook page, and the other was made up of Facebook and Snapchat profiles of young men known as” Mikey Cool” or Mike. & nbsp,

He started chatting with a feminine victim who was 17 years old at the time as Jasmin in November 2015. The victim became comfortable with the topic because she thought Jasmin was a woman her own age when he started talking about sexual matters with her.

Mike, who was also the accused, was then introduced to the target by Jasmin, and the two immediately started talking about sex.

Tay would give her pictures and videos of people engaging in sexual acts after the victim publicly shared her intimate experiences. He claimed that Jasmin had intercourse with her partner in one of the video. & nbsp,

Mike left the defendant’s sexual toy on a chair close to their home between 2015 and 2016. It was recovered by the prey. & nbsp,

In 2017, Tay, posing as Jasmin, made friends with another girl who was then 19 years old on Facebook and asked the victim, whom she referred to as” elder sister ,” for advice on sexual matters. & nbsp,

According to Deputy Public Prosecutor Sheldon Lim,” Jasmin told( the victim ) that she had recently gotten together with her boyfriend, and asked[ the target ] how to sexually gratify him.” & nbsp,

The victim gave her advice and related her personal erotic experiences because she thought she was speaking to a younger lady. The target declined to give any videos of her and her boyfriend having sex when Jasmin asked for them.

Otherwise, the victim consented to take her nude photo after Jasmin sent a picture of what appeared to be herself. & nbsp,

In January 2016, Tay introduced himself as Jasmin to a female victim who was 15 years old through Facebook and started having expressed conversations with him. & nbsp,

” Jasmin and the victim chatted about a variety of physical issues from 2016 until June 2019.” According to court documents,” The victim would tell Jasmin about the sexual acts that he wanted to perform on her, and JaSmin would respond by telling( the victim ) about those acts. & nbsp,

Tay did the same to a different female victim who was 17 at the time and whom he had become friends with on Facebook in 2016.

On October 30, Tay may appear in court again for a imprisonment. & nbsp,

He could receive a jail sentence of up to & nbsp, three months, or both for spreading offensive material.

Continue Reading

Cold case solved: Stranger who sexually assaulted 6-year-old girl during hide-and-seek gets jail

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

SINGAPORE: A stranger who sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl while she played hide-and-seek at the void deck of a Housing Board block was sentenced to 11 years’ jail on Monday (Oct 2).

Police solved the cold case from 2014 through DNA profiling after the offender, Lau Seng Kee, was arrested for an obscene act in front of another child last year.

His DNA matched with DNA taken from semen in the 2014 sexual assault, which had been stored in a database for eight years.

After being nabbed, Lau, now 60, admitted to police that he had previously masturbated in front of primary school girls in uniform.

He also admitted to six or seven instances when he went around looking specifically for “round-faced” young primary school girls, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated sexual assault involving the six-year-old victim.

Two other charges were considered for sentencing – for sexual exploitation of the six-year-old on the same occasion in 2014, and for an obscene act committed in public in front of another young girl in 2022.

VICTIM SUFFERED “RECURRING THOUGHTS” ABOUT THE ASSAULT

Around noon on Feb 21, 2014, the six-year-old victim and her eight-year-old sister were at the void deck of a Housing and Development Board block.

The identity of the victim and the location of the offence are gagged by court order.

The sisters, who were accompanied by their maid, decided to play hide-and-seek. The victim was wearing her primary school physical education uniform at the time.

During the game, she saw Lau loitering at a staircase area in the void deck. She ignored him, but noticed that he was smiling at her from a distance.

Unable to find her sister, the victim went to search the staircase area. Lau beckoned to her to follow him and she did so, following him up a flight of stairs.

At the staircase landing, Lau turned to face the victim and suddenly exposed his private parts to her.

He made a suggestive comment to the victim and directed her to touch him and perform a sexual act. 

After the assault, Lau smiled at the victim and walked up the stairs. The girl went back down, where her sister asked where she had gone, and she told her sister what had happened.

The school bus then came and both sisters boarded it. Later that night, during dinner, the victim told her father what had happened and he lodged a police report.

During the assault, Lau’s semen got onto the girl’s shirt. DNA profiles were obtained from the semen and stored in the Health Sciences Authority’s database.

The victim saw a child psychiatrist in March 2014, who reported that the girl suffered from “recurring thoughts” about the assault.

“Despite the police’s best efforts, they were unable to establish any actionable leads and the investigative efforts ceased in 2020 after almost six years of work,” said prosecutors.

The breakthrough came in May 2022. Police got a call from a parent who identified Lau as the man who had stared at and approached his nine-year-old daughter at a playground, even offering to buy her ice cream.

While the police were interviewing Lau, a cleaner came by and told officers he had seen Lau masturbating in public about two to three weeks ago in front of a girl aged nine or 10, who was crying.

The cleaner had given chase but lost sight of Lau, and had been looking out for him ever since.

Police arrested Lau and took a DNA sample from him. It registered a cold hit against the DNA profile from the 2014 case, identifying him as the suspect.

CAUSES DEEP PUBLIC DISQUIET, SAYS PROSECUTION

During sentencing arguments, Deputy Public Prosecutors Wong Woon Kwong and Jean Goh said serious sexual crimes committed against children cause deep public disquiet.

In this case, they pointed out that the assault was carried out in broad daylight in a public housing estate against a child who was a stranger to the offender.

“This causes significant unease to the public at large and to parents in particular, who ought to be able to have their children play in HDB void decks without fear of sexual assault,” they argued.

They described Lau’s conduct as “predatory”, as he laid in wait for the victim and lured her away from her sister and maid to an isolated stairwell.

They noted the victim’s vulnerability given her age, which is significantly younger than the age ceiling of 14 years for the offence of aggravated sexual assault.

The prosecutors also argued that Lau’s 2022 offence “makes clear that the passage of time had not dampened the accused’s alarming sexual predilection for young girls”.

They sought nine-and-a-half to 11-and-a-half years’ jail for Lau, with an additional six months in lieu of 12 strokes of the cane.

Lau cannot be caned as he is above 50.

Defence counsel Kalaithasan Karuppaya and Cheryl Sim asked for a shorter sentence, highlighting that Lau pleaded guilty instead of claiming trial.

Ms Sim told the court her client was deeply apologetic and ashamed, and that he had lost his job and the trust of friends and loved ones as a result of his actions.

Justice Valerie Thean sentenced Lau to 10-and-a-half years’ jail, with an additional six months in lieu of 12 strokes of the cane.

Lau could have been jailed for eight to 20 years for the offence, which also carries a mandatory minimum penalty of at least 12 strokes of the cane.

Continue Reading

Humans of New York’s Brandon Stanton wades into India copyright row

By:
On:
In: Asia
Brandon Stanton attends BookCon 2015 at Javits Center on May 31, 2015 in New York CityGetty Images
By Meryl Sebastian
BBC News

A row has broken out after the founder of popular photo blog Humans of New York criticised a similar Indian platform’s take on copyright.

Humans of Bombay, which follows the same format as Brandon Stanton’s New York blog, started in Mumbai in 2014.

It recently filed a suit against People of India, which started a few years later, of copyright infringement.

All three tell stories of people in the form of interviews or posts alongside their photos.

Earlier this month, Humans of Bombay (HOB) filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court saying People of India (POI) was an “identical portal/service” which had “replicated a large number of images and videos” from its platform. People of India has been summoned for a hearing on 11 October.

Founded by Drishti Saxena in 2019, POI has over two million followers on social media. In the court documents, HOB has shared screengrabs of People of India’s posts alleging that that were almost exactly like its own.

POI has not publicly commented on the lawsuit but continues to share posts on Instagram. On Saturday, it also opened an account on X.

The case made headlines in India after Stanton commented on it on Saturday on X (formerly Twitter) – “you can’t be suing people for what I’ve forgiven you for”, he posted.

Stanton said he had remained quiet about “the appropriation of my work” by Humans of Bombay because it “shares important stories”. He also pointed out that HOB had monetised their work “far past anything I’d feel comfortable doing on HONY [Humans of New York]”.

HOB responded to Stanton’s post, saying it was shocked at the “cryptic assault” on its effort to protect its intellectual property without understanding the background of the case. It added that Stanton “ought to have equipped” himself with information before commenting.

The Indian platform faced backlash from many in the country who called its lawsuit hypocritical. One user pointed out that HOB used the same tagline as HONY – “one story at a time” – on its X page.

Others questioned what copyright laws HOB adhered to while using the stories of people it interviewed for its platform.

In 2019, HOB had been criticised for publishing a flattering five-part interview of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the national elections.

In a post on X on Sunday, HOB said it was “grateful” to HONY and Stanton for “starting this storytelling movement”.

It also attempted to clarify that its case was related to intellectual property of its posts and “not about storytelling at all”.

Karishma Mehta, photographer and founder of the Facebook page 'Humans of Bombay'

Getty Images

But on Monday, Stanton released a statement saying: “For the last 13 years I haven’t received a penny for a single story told on Humans of New York, despite many millions offered.”

He said he welcomed anyone using the concept “to express something true and beautiful about their community” but did not identify with anyone using it “to create a certain lifestyle for themselves”.

In an interview to an Indian YouTube channel earlier this year, HOB founder Karishma Mehta said the platform functioned as a business that ran on ads and also collaborated with brands like Amazon, WhatsApp and Unilever for their campaigns.

Stanton’s HONY has more than 20 million followers across social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and has had its work featured in bestselling books like Humans of New York: Stories.

The project and Stanton are known for using the platform to raise money for some of the people he profiles and for causes like hurricane victims in the US and Rohingya refugees.

In 2022, the New York Magazine called him a “one-man philanthropy machine”.

The project has inspired similar platforms in other cities and countries. In his post on Saturday, Stanton said he loved the Humans of Amsterdam project run by Debra Barraud because she “stayed so true to the art, and has never viewed the stories that she shares as the ‘front end’ of a business”.

BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features.

Presentational grey line

Read more India stories from the BBC:

Presentational grey line

Related Topics

Continue Reading

Women file reports against ‘farang-finding’ scam

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

PUBLISHED: September 21, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

Many Thai women claim that after paying cash to a matching service on Facebook in the hopes of falling in love with an international man, they were duped.

According to the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau( CCIB ) yesterday, the women suffered a total loss of about 881 million baht.

According to CCIB official Kissana Phathanacharoen, victims reported to police alleging that an online match, whose Facebook page has 150 000 followers, had defrauded them of hundreds of millions of baht.

He claimed that the renowned matchmaker caters to Thai women seeking farang companions— a term used to describe people who appear to be from Europe. The quality of the men’s profiles is based on the offer price that the match determines.

For farang designers and office employees, the most basic package costs 20, 000 rmb; for developers and businessmen, it costs 30, 000; it cost doctors, pharmacists, and dairy land owners and garden owners 100 000 Baht.

The matchmaker, according to Pol Col Kissana, offers personal coaching on how to find a farang husband for 5, 000 baht and claims to make profiles on online dating sites for her clients for 7, 000 baht.

Victims claimed that the match did not introduce them to someone, and the farang men she had sent them pictures of were actually high-profile businessmen, athletes, or celebrities.

According to Pol Col Kissana, there were 2, 621 cases of matching schemes between March 2022 and September 17 of this year, making this type of relationship con the 12th most reported murder with an 881 million baht total loss.

The analysis looked into the case of seven adult sufferers who had paid more than 100,000 baht for the matchmaking service in the hopes that it would turn up high-profile men for them.

The patients went to renowned attorney Decha Kittivittayanan to report their scams to the law with the intention of taking the case to court after realizing they had been duped.

One of the sufferers revealed that she is a solitary mother looking to travel abroad with her child by finding he in the West. She made the decision to pay for the service after seeing how effective the matchmaker’s advertisement was.

Over ten survivors of the fraud, according to Mr. Decha, have contacted him.

Continue Reading

Women warned of bogus provider of attractive foreign lovers

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

20 September 2023 at 13:29 PUBLISHED

Women warned of bogus provider of attractive foreign lovers
Pol Col. Kissana Phathanacharoen, a CCIB official.

Women have been forewarned by the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau of a dishonest online matchmaking service that scams them out of finding them beautiful foreign lovers.

According to CCIB spokesman Pol Col Kissana Phathanacharoen & nbsp, many women complained on Wednesday about being duped by the online matchmaker” Mae Sue Online ,” which had about 150,000 Facebook followers.

The page charged a variety of fees to find them prospective unusual lovers.

According to Pol Col Kissana, the fees ranged from 20, 000 baht for a foreign national who works as an expert or civil servant to 30, 000 Bahr for real estate developers, 50, 000 BH for doctors or pharmacists, and 100,000 BHT for orchard owners.

Additionally, the site administrator offered to create profiles for clients at a cost of 7, 000 baht each and to train them in andnbsp, finding them overseas lovers for 5,000.

Consumers were given pictures of potential matches that eventually turned out to be famous actors, athletes, or businessmen. According to Pol Col Kissana, that is when the accusers eventually realized they had been duped.

About 2,600 people were fraud victims between March 1 and September 17, and they made up 0.80 % of all patients who reported the scam electronically and claimed to have lost a total of 881 million baht, according to the spokesman.

According to him, people fraud carries a maximum prison sentence of five years and / or good of 100,000 ringgit.

Continue Reading