Singapore’s Online Safety Commission: How to Report Online Harm and Seek Relief

Singapore’s Online Safety Commission (OSC) began operating on 29 June 2026, supporting the Commissioner of Online Safety under Singapore’s Online Safety (Relief and Accountability) Act 2025 (OSRAA). The framework is designed to give victims a more accessible way to seek action against harmful online content, while also creating statutory civil claims in defined circumstances.

The important distinction is that the OSC’s administrative process and a civil lawsuit are separate routes. A report may lead to directions to restrict content or accounts; a court claim may seek damages or other judicial remedies.

What the OSC covers first

OSRAA is intended to address 13 categories of online harm, but the initial operating phase focuses on five:

• Online harassment, including online sexual harassment
• Doxxing
• Online stalking
• Intimate image abuse
• Image-based child abuse

The categories are defined by the nature and likely impact of the conduct. Intimate image abuse includes communicating, offering or advertising an intimate image or recording without consent where the conduct is likely to cause harassment, alarm, distress or humiliation.

Doxxing involves publishing another person’s identity information online in circumstances where a reasonable person would conclude that the publication was likely intended to cause harassment, alarm, distress or humiliation to the person or someone connected to them.

Online harassment covers threatening, abusive, insulting, sexual or indecent online material that is likely to cause harassment, alarm, distress or humiliation. The legal threshold is not simply whether someone found a post offensive; ordinary criticism or disagreement will not necessarily qualify.

Additional OSRAA categories are expected to be introduced progressively rather than all at once.

What the Commissioner can order

After assessing a report, the Commissioner may issue directions where there is reason to suspect that covered online harm has occurred. Depending on the circumstances, a direction may require a communicator, administrator or platform to:

• Disable access to harmful content
• Restrict the perpetrator’s account
• Take other steps to stop or limit the harm

The regime can take account of the cumulative impact of related harassing communications. That matters where a sequence of posts creates serious harm even though an individual communication might appear less severe in isolation. The supplied material does not establish a separate formal process for automatically removing every identical copy of a post; any wider restriction would depend on the Commissioner’s statutory direction-making powers and the facts of the case.

A person who fails to comply with an OSC direction may commit a criminal offence.

How victims report to the OSC

The reporting route depends on the type of harm.

Direct reports

Victims can report intimate image abuse, image-based child abuse and doxxing directly through the OSC website.

Platform-first reports

For online harassment and online stalking, the initial step is to use the platform’s reporting channel. If the platform does not respond promptly or responds inadequately within 24 hours, the matter can then be reported to the OSC.

Platform reporting may also be the fastest practical first step for other harmful material, since platforms commonly provide tools for reporting both the content and the account responsible.

Who can report

A report may be made by:

• The victim
• A parent or guardian for a victim under 18
• Another person authorised in writing by the victim

Reporting to the OSC is free. Singapore’s system also follows a “no-wrong-door” approach: someone who approaches another government agency should be directed to appropriate assistance rather than simply left without a route forward.

What evidence to preserve

Reporters should preserve material that helps establish what happened, where it happened and the risk or harm involved. Useful records may include:

• URLs or links to the content
• Usernames and account details
• Dates and times
• Screenshots or recordings
• Copies of platform reports and responses
• Information showing the impact of the conduct or an ongoing risk

Do not delete relevant messages or alter screenshots if the material may later be needed for an OSC report, an Online Harm Notice or court proceedings.

Support, reconsideration and appeals

Community partners can help victims and families with reporting and emotional support. The partners identified in the supplied material are Fei Yue Community Services, Samaritans of Singapore, SHE – SG Her Empowerment, Singapore Children’s Society and TOUCH Community Services.

A person eligible to request reconsideration of an OSC decision generally has 14 days to do so. Reconsideration is free, and the Commissioner may affirm, revoke, vary or substitute the original decision.

After reconsideration, a dissatisfied party may appeal within a further 14-day period to the independent Online Safety Appeal Panel. The supplied material states that the appeal fee is $200 and that the panel has the same range of decision-making outcomes.

The OSC is not the same as a compensation claim

An OSC direction is an administrative remedy aimed at stopping or limiting online harm. It does not replace a civil action. OSRAA creates statutory torts that may allow victims to bring court claims against the communicator and, in appropriate cases, an administrator or online platform. Courts may award damages and other judicial remedies.

A victim who does not know the perpetrator’s identity may also apply to the OSC for end-user identity information when considering or intending civil proceedings. The application must be made within 12 months of the harm, or within 12 months of when the victim first became aware of it, whichever is later. Any disclosed information is subject to purpose and use restrictions.

The supplied sources do not establish a universal rule on recovering future-earnings losses or a numerical cap on damages. Those questions depend on the applicable statutory provisions, court process and facts of the individual claim, so they should not be treated as having one guaranteed answer.

What an Online Harm Notice does

An Online Harm Notice is a formal statutory notice sent by a victim or authorised representative to an administrator or online service provider. It tells the recipient that online harm has occurred at its online location.

The notice is important because it can trigger the administrator’s or platform’s statutory duty to assess the alleged harm and, if harm occurred, take reasonable steps to address it within a reasonable time. It is generally a prerequisite to a claim against an administrator or platform, but it is not required to report to the OSC or to take legal action directly against the communicator.

An ordinary in-app report is not automatically an Online Harm Notice, and neither is an OSC report. A valid notice must use the legally required form, include the required particulars and be sent in the prescribed manner. An invalid notice may not trigger the recipient’s statutory duty.

The process also carries responsibility for the sender. A frivolous or false notice can expose the sender to civil liability, including compensatory damages for resulting loss.

Response benchmarks for prescribed platforms

General administrators and platforms must respond reasonably within a reasonable time. What is reasonable depends on factors such as the seriousness of the harm, the likelihood of repetition and the practicality of the proposed response. In a repeated-harassment case, removing one post may not be enough; account restrictions, warnings or page removal may be reasonable depending on the facts.

Some designated services are subject to more specific response benchmarks for valid Online Harm Notices:

• Six hours: intimate image abuse or image-based child abuse involving exposed private parts
• 24 hours: other intimate image abuse or image-based child abuse
• 48 hours: other covered harms, including harassment, stalking and doxxing

The prescribed services listed in the supplied material include YouTube and Google Maps Reviews; Facebook, Instagram and Threads; WhatsApp; X; HardwareZone Forums; TikTok; Reddit; Telegram; and WeChat.

This means named services operated by companies such as Google, Meta and TikTok, as well as HardwareZone Forums, are within the prescribed-platform framework described above. However, the supplied evidence does not include separate public implementation statements from those companies. It therefore does not support attributing more specific compliance commitments to Google, Meta, TikTok or HardwareZone beyond the statutory framework.

The practical takeaway

For someone facing covered online harm, the most useful sequence is usually:

1. Preserve links, screenshots, account details and evidence of impact.
2. Report through the platform when the harm is harassment or stalking, while also using the direct OSC route for intimate image abuse, image-based child abuse or doxxing.
3. Escalate to the OSC when the platform-first 24-hour condition for harassment or stalking is met.
4. Consider support from an OSC community partner.
5. Treat an Online Harm Notice as a formal legal document, not as a standard platform report.
6. Seek legal advice separately if the goal includes identifying an anonymous perpetrator, obtaining damages or pursuing a claim against a platform or administrator.

The OSC provides a new route to urgent online-safety relief, but the evidence and legal requirements differ depending on whether the goal is content restriction, account action, information disclosure or compensation.