The Judiciary Police (PJ) and the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) jointly launched a series of activities entitled “On-campus Anti-scam ‘Vaccination’ Programme”, with the aim of enhancing university and college students’ awareness of the risk of falling victim to online scams, DSEDJ Director Kong Chi Meng said on Friday.
Kong made the remarks during a press conference announcing the launch of the programme at the PJ headquarters in Zape, adding that the programme has been set up due to the considerable number of tertiary students who keep on falling for all kinds of online fraud.
Kong said that based on what the police have done already to combat online scams, a new round of anti-fraud promotion and education work will be launched in a more targeted way in conjunction with local universities and colleges, with the aim of strengthening students’ anti-fraud awareness.
During the press conference on Friday, PJ Director Sit Chong Meng said that the series of on-campus activities will include anti-fraud content to be added to the higher education curriculum, setting up a platform for students to undergo an “anti-fraud test”, students acting as on-campus “anti-fraud police”, and sending out PJ anti-fraud personnel to local universities and colleges for promotional purposes.
According to Sit, data shows 40 cases of telephone fraud involving students, accounting for 42 percent of the total in the first quarter of this year, resulting in over 26 million patacas in losses. Sit underlined that the share of students among the telephone fraud victims increased for two consecutive quarters.
Sit also said that as of last Sunday, the total number of clicks of the PJ’s anti-fraud WeChat Mini Programme had reached more than 21,000 since it was launched early this year, among which the “Fraud Finder” function recorded 5,772 clicks, while the programme has issued a total of 828 high- and medium-level risk warnings.
Sit encouraged the public to make good use of the anti-fraud WeChat Mini Programme to take the initiative to make enquiries and report cases to the police, and to work together to prevent fraud and deception.
Judiciary Police (PJ) Director Sit Chong Meng addresses a press conference at the PJ headquarters in Zape on Friday. – Photo: PJ
