Governments must lead the fight against foreign interference in national affairs and cannot look to technology companies to solve the problem, Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said on Wednesday (Sept 25).

“Governments have to lead from the front and we need to ensure we have the right tools to fight this,” Mr Shanmugam, who is also Law Minister, said at a conference on foreign-interference tactics and countermeasures.

Stressing the need for laws to tackle the issue, he said that technology companies cannot be left to self-regulate in the absence of legislation.

“The responses (from technology companies) have been varied so far to the challenges that have come out — from denial that there are problems to taking some reasonably effective steps,” Mr Shanmugam told more than 200 people at the Parkroyal hotel on Beach Road.

The audience at the conference, organised by the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, included academics, public servants, and representatives from civil society and the business world.