SingaporePublic sector2021 – ongoingHealth Sciences Authority
AI-assisted surveillance of illegal online health products
HSA reported that AI-assisted online surveillance cut detection work from weeks to hours
Problem
Enforcement officers manually searched e-commerce listings for illegal health products. Checking items individually made surveillance repetitive and slow.
Approach
HSA trialled an e-commerce surveillance tool developed by the Home Team Science and Technology Agency. It combined robotic process automation with AI to examine online listings. HTX described text and image analysis customised to help identify illicit products.
Results
No published figures
Takeaway
The tool accelerated the search stage of enforcement. HSA reported a shorter detection process without publishing a false-positive rate or an exact time comparison.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Public sector
- Business function
- Production and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Computer visionRobotics and automation
- Adoption
- Partner co-development
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
HSA reported trialling HTX's automated surveillance tool for illegal online health products. It said AI and robotic process automation shortened detection from weeks to hours and freed enforcement staff from manual searches.
HTX described development of an AI bot combining automated data collection with text and image analysis. It specified an HSA trial starting on 8 July 2021, followed by feedback and further customisation.
Full details are in the original sources.
