When we hear the words digital authoritarianism, the firstexamples that probably come to mind are China with its “Great Firewall” and robust digital surveillance architecture, or Russia’s repressive legal regime that fosters the intimidation of major companies and civil societies. But focusing only on such overt cases risks missing a quieter and perhaps more concerning development: the rise of a more subtle, yet highly efficient digital control in affluent and internationally respected countries.
Singapore represents one such case.
Increasingly, surveillance tools and active measures to control the online narrative to a state’s advantage are being adopted by governments that are not traditionally viewed as authoritarian. These practices can emerge within governments classified as both democratic or hybrid, where they are often justified in the name of public security or technological efficiency.
Several decades ago, the city-state of Singapore became one of the world’s most developed countries, with its GDP per capita having tripled since the 1990s. High levels of living standards and educational attainment, low crime rates and strong institutions have cemented its reputation as a model of economic success and effective governance. For many, Singapore represents the ideal of technocratic governance. But this same technocratic efficiency has also produced something else: a sophisticated system of legal and digital tools that allow the state to monitor and shape everyday life.
The People’s Action Party (PAP) and the powerful Lee family have dominated the parliamentary political system since 1959. While there is some political pluralism and elections are held regularly, the growth of credible opposition parties and freedoms of expression and assembly are constricted. Moreover, critics of the government face strict defamation laws, and the media environment is regulated.
In recent years, digital technology has added a new layer to this system of control as it has become the central arena through which political power is exercised and contested. While online communication has allowed civil society and organisations to voice issues that are often neglected and expanded opportunities for participation, these very same technologies have also introduced a new set of threats such as invasion of privacy and rampant disinformation. The heightened use of surveillance tools to oversee mainstream media and govern online speech has been made possible through legal loopholes and provisions. Key examples include the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) of 2019, the Cybersecurity Act of 2018 and the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (FICA) of 2021. For instance, FICA gives authorities broad powers to disable accounts and remove apps, while POFMA permits government ministers to make corrections or removals if they deem online content as false or misleading, for the sake of a loosely defined “public interest”. Correction orders and defamation lawsuits have been issued against international and Singaporean news outlets, opposition figures, and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), heavily limiting online freedoms of expression.
These, combined with the investigative powers and lack of privacy laws granted by the Cybersecurity Act, create a framework which allows the state to intervene directly in online spaces. These acts are presented as necessary safeguards against foreign intervention and misinformation, but in reality, laws like these blur the lines of what is out of bounds and greatly narrow the space for political debate. In this sense, law does not only impose a legal limit on government action, but is also used as a tool that is directly connected to the consolidation of power at the expense of democracy. Crucially, while these laws enable direct intervention, their most powerful effect is often indirect. The result is not always visible coercion, but “anticipatory discipline”: an environment in which ordinary citizens pre-emptively moderate their speech to avoid legal consequences, encouraging self-censorship. In this way, control becomes internalised.
Alongside digital surveillance, physical surveillance infrastructure also plays an essential role, as it enables the systematic collection of real-world behavioural data. Singapore is one of the most surveilled cities in the world outside of China, with a high number of wireless hotspots, majority of which are owned by the government and can potentially provide information about users’ internet activities. What exacerbated the capacity of physical surveillance was the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many countries, Singapore introduced various tools in efforts to contain the virus, for example, the TraceTogether and SafeEntry applications, designed to collect proximity data and track potential infections. They collected identifiable information and were supported through both smartphone apps and physical tokens, extending tracking to those without digital access.
Although initially framed solely as a public health measure, research has shown that such systems involve extensive data processing and third-party infrastructure, complicating claims of minimal intrusion. Concerns were raised by the public regarding their privacy, which were initially dismissed by the government, stating that data would only be used for health purposes. Later on, the Ministry of Home Affairs revealed that the data could also be accessed by law enforcement agencies for serious criminal offences, including drug trafficking and terrorism, and had in fact already been used in a murder investigation.
Similar trends exist across other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar, with governments silencing their critics, weakening institutions and implementing laws that “curb freedom but claim to curb the virus”. In Singapore, these measures fit neatly into an already sophisticated regulatory framework. The demonstrated flexibility and scalability of the infrastructure indicate a governance model in which pervasive surveillance is not only possible but institutionally embedded. What makes Singapore particularly significant is not just what it does, but what it represents. Its reputation as an efficient and well-governed state gives legitimacy to policies that might otherwise face stronger international resistance. As a result, this model risks becoming a blueprint for other governments seeking to regulate digital spaces under the justification of addressing “fake news” and foreign interference. As journalists and human rights activists have put it, “human rights-abusing ideas spread between governments [in Southeast Asia] like the flu at a kindergarten.”
To be clear, Singapore is not a dystopian surveillance state. It does not rely on mass censorship, widespread political imprisonment, or systematic blocking of online platforms. Dissent is not primarily controlled through direct coercion, and digital spaces remain broadly accessible. It does, however, force us to rethink what digital authoritarianism may actually look like. It is not always overt repression but can develop gradually through legal frameworks, digital infrastructure and the quiet expansion of state oversight on grounds of security and technological progress. In a country that enjoys high levels of economic development and stability, such measures can appear reasonable, even imperative. This is precisely what makes this model so powerful—its embeddedness in convenience, compliance and infrastructure. When surveillance becomes routine, when online speech is corrected by legal ambiguities and when citizens accept monitoring as the price of stability, political power can grow and operate silently. And then, once new infrastructure has been implemented, legally and physically, without meeting much restraint, digital authoritarianism becomes far harder to challenge. As governments experiment more and more with artificial intelligence, data collection, and digital regulation, the line between efficient leadership and political control becomes increasingly blurred. Singapore may not resemble China or Russia in its explicitness, but it does teach us another important lesson—danger is not necessarily visible coercion; sometimes it is normalisation, developed gradually through law, technology and everyday governance.
Written by Yoana Kartova, Edited by Leontine Kroon.
Photo Credit: Claudio Schwarz (2023, December 19) on Unsplash.
