How to tackle fake websites

This week Singapore Polytechnics filed police reports over fake websites. It’s the latest in a string of fraudulent sites looking to steal money from unsuspecting browsers. So how can the government eliminate this problem?

The US Government may have the answer. Its General Services Administration has just launched the US Digital Registry, containing an API of official social media accounts so that people can verify them.

The plan is also that this directory can allow third-party developers to use official information in their services.

For example, they could translate “a new Emergency Broadcast System for the digital age that delivers only authentic, official disaster relief information regardless of what agency or sub-agency it comes from without having to hunt across platforms — in the Spanish language,” said Justin Herman, GSA SocialGov Program Lead.

“The rise of third-party platforms in delivering modern public services required us to rise beside them with greater means of maintaining accountability over official government accounts, and make it as easy to follow all public services as it was to find one,” he added.

Writing on the blog site Medium, he noted that “Citizens shouldn’t have to hunt for the critical information they need across bureaucratic silos and emerging platforms, or second guess if the person who is engaging with them on the other side of the connection is who they say they are.

The U.S. Digital Registry provides the data foundation you can use to help make these problems a thing of the past.” Visit the U.S. Digital Registry to find out more.

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