March 5, 2025
SINGAPORE – In a bid to tackle falling birth rates, an ageing population and a manpower shortage, the Home Team is using technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to transform itself.
It will also hire more foreigners to fill certain roles that Singaporeans might not be keen on, said Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo.
Speaking during the debate on the Ministry of Home Affairs budget on March 4, she added: “In every aspect, the Home Team faces new and growing demands. The threat landscape is increasingly complex.
“The manpower constraints are also more binding. Birth rates are declining and the competition for talent is very tough.”
In her speech, Mrs Teo revealed some of the new tech and AI solutions for the Home Team.
A targeted on-site inspection tool powered by AI will be used by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) to assess the likelihood of fire safety violations in commercial and industrial premises.
The tool uses data from various sources, including past inspection reports. This allows the SCDF to carry out inspections on a more targeted basis, said Mrs Teo.
The tool is expected to be progressively rolled out to front-line units for field testing in the coming months.
At the prisons, a life signs monitoring system is being trialled to track inmates’ vital signs remotely, enabling prison officers to respond more quickly to incidents such as falls and abnormal heart rates.
Mrs Teo said that this is especially important with more older inmates around.
She said the Home Team has also been taking steps to use AI against AI-enabled crime, as criminals use it to carry out more sophisticated attacks. One example is the growing use of generative AI by criminals to create deepfakes.
Mrs Teo added that scammers were also exploiting technology to produce fake content at speed and scale, and to target victims. They can also use it to manufacture evidence to mislead or frustrate investigators.
To counter this, the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) developed AlchemiX, a generative AI-powered algorithm that can identify whether audio or video recordings are genuine.
HTX launched the Home Team AI Movement in June 2024 to accelerate the development and delivery of AI capabilities. The Home Team has also put in place an AI governance framework, Mrs Teo said, with a set of principles to guide the implementation of AI projects and ensure compliance with the law.
She added that in the area of manpower, SCDF’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has been significantly impacted by the increase in overall demand by almost 30 per cent over the last five years.
She said that despite more competitive salaries, local recruitment was insufficient to meet all the needs.
“This is because EMS roles require advanced medical skills that are in short supply locally. Also, EMS work, although very fulfilling, is very challenging, and may not appeal to all.”
There has also been an increasing demand for security services, with the auxiliary police forces facing challenges in sustaining an adequate pool of auxiliary police officers (APOs).
In January 2024, Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam said in a written parliamentary reply that this was due to a shrinking local workforce and other job options that Singaporeans have.
APOs were previously made up of just Singaporeans, Malaysians and Taiwanese, and he noted then that the ministry was considering expanding the list of jurisdictions APOs could be hired from.
The manpower demands are expected to grow even more with Singapore’s ageing population and with the total fertility rate remaining low at 0.97 in 2024 – the same as in 2023.
To deal with this, Mrs Teo said SCDF will be hiring foreigners as paramedics and emergency medical technicians from March.
APOs have been recruited from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, the Philippines, India and China, with these new officers making up about 3 per cent of the total APO workforce as at December 2024, she added.
Mrs Teo said: “Overall, the Home Team has achieved good outcomes for our people.
“These are reflected in how Singaporeans view the Home Team positively and hold our officers in high regard.”