The news
The Meta anti-scam campaign known as One Step Ahead has reached more than 303 million people across 18 Asia-Pacific countries since it began in May 2026, Meta Platforms (META) said on September 29, 2026, as governments in the region press platforms to curb fraud.
The campaign runs as ads on Facebook and Instagram that steer users toward account-security tools and local sources of help. Meta said it was designed with more than 25 local safety organizations, police forces and government agencies, around three principles: advice should be practical, easy to act on and come from a source people trust.
Partners named by Meta include Scamwatch, the service run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; Japan's National Police Agency; the Singapore Police Force; India's National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal; the Philippines' central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; and Hong Kong's Anti-Deception Coordination Centre. Agencies and groups in Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are also listed. Meta's post names partners in these 14 countries and territories but does not say which other four countries make up the 18 it reports.
According to Meta, the campaign has delivered more than 1.3 billion impressions, or ad views, and more than 1.2 million link clicks. A part of the campaign called Know Your Local Resources, which points people to reporting tools and support in their own country, reached more than 27.4 million people across 14 markets, the company said. Meta described the effort as one of the largest online-safety education campaigns it has run in the region.
The ads promote features including two-factor authentication, which adds a second step at login; passkeys, a sign-in method that replaces passwords; Meta's Security Checkup and Privacy Checkup; and WhatsApp's linked-device warning and group privacy settings. Meta said the campaign will continue throughout 2026, with new tools, locally tailored resources and more partnerships planned.
The update follows a September 22, 2026 post in which Meta said it had acted on 3.7 million accounts, pages and pieces of content through its partnership with the Singapore Police Force, including more than 3.6 million shell pages in July 2026 that had been set up for future scams. In that post, Meta also said it had removed 65 million scam ads from Facebook and Instagram so far in 2026, 94% of them before anyone reported them.
The numbers
- People reached since May 2026 (Meta figure)
- More than 303 million
- Countries reached (Meta figure)
- 18
- Impressions (Meta figure)
- More than 1.3 billion
- Link clicks (Meta figure)
- More than 1.2 million
- Reached by Know Your Local Resources, 14 markets (Meta figure)
- More than 27.4 million
- Scam ads Meta says it removed from Facebook and Instagram so far in 2026
- 65 million
Why CEOs should care
For banks, payment firms and telecom operators, the central question is who pays when a customer is scammed. Singapore's Shared Responsibility Framework, introduced in December 2024, uses a waterfall that assigns losses to a bank or telecom operator that failed its duties and leaves the loss with the consumer if both complied, according to a June 2025 analysis by law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth. The same analysis said Australia's Scams Prevention Framework will first cover banks, telecom providers and digital platforms, but gives little guidance on how losses are split when customers complain. Risk and compliance chiefs should track whether platforms end up sharing that bill.
For brands and their marketing and legal teams, scam ads frequently misuse trusted names. Singapore's second directive to Meta under the Online Criminal Harms Act, announced January 29, 2026, requires enhanced facial recognition checks against scam ads and pages impersonating government office holders and other prominent people, with phased deadlines running to June 30, 2026. Companies should know how to report impersonation quickly to each platform and to local agencies like those in Meta's campaign, and ask platforms what protections exist for their own executives and brands.
For chief information security officers, the security tools Meta is promoting, such as two-factor authentication and passkeys, match what many companies already require of staff, and the local reporting channels Meta lists can be reused in employee training. Boards should read the numbers carefully: total link clicks were equivalent to about 0.4% of reach, a Tech CEO Daily calculation from Meta's figures, which is not the same as the share of people who clicked. Reach is not the same as changed behavior, and Meta has not published data on whether scam losses fell.
The bigger picture
Governments in Asia-Pacific are moving from requests to requirements. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said that after the first implementation directive to Meta, issued in September 2025, police saw fewer scams on Facebook impersonating the government office holders it covered, though scammers then shifted to impersonating people it did not cover. The ministry said failing to comply with the second directive could bring a fine of up to $1 million plus up to $100,000 for each day the offense continues (amounts in Singapore dollars). On August 17, 2026, the Singapore Police Force issued codes of practice under the Online Criminal Harms Act requiring designated services, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and Facebook Marketplace, to take measures to proactively disrupt scams, with most requirements due by January 31, 2027.
Elsewhere, Biometric Update reported in February 2026 that Taiwan had passed a law requiring advertiser verification and that Thailand's digital economy minister had urged global platforms to do more to protect Thai users. Education campaigns built with the same police forces and regulators let platforms show cooperation. The policy question for the next year is whether that cooperation slows the shift toward mandatory checks and shared liability for losses.
What’s next
Meta said One Step Ahead will continue throughout 2026 with more partners and local resources. Watch which agencies join next, whether Meta reports outcomes beyond reach and clicks, such as scam report volumes, and how Australia designates digital platforms and sets their obligations under its Scams Prevention Framework.
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