New initiatives announced to help businesses protect data and deploy AI in a trusted ecosystem

29 July 2025

On 7 July 2025, the Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore (“IMDA”) issued a press release on the following new initiatives which aim to create a trusted ecosystem for the safe and responsible deployment of technologies, especially artificial intelligence (“AI”): 

  • Expanded Global AI Assurance Sandbox: Building on the encouraging momentum of the Global AI Assurance pilot, which was launched in February 2025, AI Verify Foundation (“AIVF”) and IMDA have now expanded the pilot to cover new archetypes such as agentic AI and risks (e.g. data leakage and vulnerability to prompt injections). The Global AI Assurance Sandbox (“Sandbox”) will also be open to sector regulators who want to develop and get real-life feedback on their AI governance / testing guidelines. Insights from the Sandbox will inform policy guidance with the aim of developing accreditation for testers. It will also leverage IMDA’s recently launched Starter Kit for Safety Testing of LLM-based Applications to provide a more standardised, structured manner of operation for the testers. 
  • New privacy enhancing technologies (“PET”) adoption guide: The PET Adoption Guide (“Guide”) aims to support companies in adopting PETs to unlock greater business value, such as enabling AI and machine learning with greater access to data and cross-sharing of insights between multiple stakeholders (e.g. across teams in organisations or across sectors). The Guide provides for two practical resources to help organisations identify the PETs and processes that are relevant to their use case: (i) the “PETs Use Case Evaluation Tool” which aims to help organisations identify and evaluate suitable PETs solutions for their specific business needs; and (ii) the “Implementation Checklist” which will highlight key areas of consideration for organisations across the PETs adoption journey. Intended as a “living document”, the Guide and resources would be frequently finetuned as new use cases join the IMDA PET Sandbox, as well as from industry feedback.
    In 2022, IMDA and the Personal Data Protection Commission introduced the PET Sandbox to catalyse the use of PETs by businesses.     
  • New national certification for data protection: IMDA has worked with Enterprise Singapore and the Singapore Accreditation Council to elevate the Data Protection Trustmark (“DPTM”) to a new Singapore Standard (SS 714:2025) (“DPTM Singapore Standard”), which puts it on par with global data protection benchmarks and international best practices. Companies that demonstrate accountable data protection practices can apply to be certified under the new DPTM Singapore Standard. The DPTM Singapore Standard provides organisations with clearer data protection requirements around critical areas like third-party management and overseas transfers, helping certified organisations to demonstrate their commitment to effective data protection.

 Reference materials 

The following materials are available on the IMDA website www.imda.gov.sg and the Ministry of Digital Development and Information website www.mddi.gov.sg: