Steve Tan

Practice Areas

Steve’s practice is in the areas of non-contentious and contentious Data Protection, Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Cybersecurity, Communications and Digital Media / Entertainment law. He has been recognised as a Highly Recommended lawyer for TMT by leading publications such as Chambers Asia-Pacific from 2013 to 2024. The Legal 500 Asia Pacific from 2010 to 2024, Best Lawyers from 2013 to 2023 and asialaw from 2011 to 2023.

Steve has also been named Lawyer of the Year for Information Technology Law in Singapore by Best Lawyers 2022, and a Global Leader in Data Privacy & Protection and Data Security by Who’s Who Legal 2023. He was also recognised as Telecommunications Lawyer of the Year by Corporate LiveWire Global Awards 2020.

According to Chambers Asia-Pacific 2024, Steve is “a well-reputed lawyer”. In the publication’s 2023 edition, Steve is noted to have “always displayed himself standing among the top of the data protection practice. His knowledge on the topic is immense and extensive, he is well-liked and trusted by his customers. His sense of professionalism and responsibility is at the highest level expected by any client”, a client notes according to The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2022.

Steve is also among the first set of accredited lawyers announced by the Singapore Academy of Law announced in March 2023, achieving Senior Accredited Specialist status in Data & Digital Economy.

In 2019, Steve has been appointed Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore, to teach its Privacy & Data Protection law course.

Steve co-founded Rajah & Tann Technologies Pte Ltd, a company that, among various services, specialises in providing technical services to organisations to prevent data breaches as well as technical incident responses services to deal with data breaches. In the 2nd half of 2020, Steve also co-founded Rajah & Tann Cybersecurity Pte Ltd, a business that provides pre data incident and post data incident technical security and cyber security services. Services include technical security assessment of an organisation’s IT systems and data systems, incident response, technical forensic investigations, vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, to name a few.

Experience

Steve is at the forefront of data privacy law work and developments in Singapore as well as in Asian regional countries. His leadership in data privacy work has resulted in Steve being frequently invited to share his insights on IT/IP/data protection/Entertainment law and developments, at speaking engagements around the world such as Europe, USA including Singapore. As a further indicator of his passion and ingenuity for data privacy law, Steve conceived an inaugural three days international data privacy conference (sited in Asia but with international reach) called ‘Data Privacy Asia’ which was held in August 2015 in Singapore and featured speakers from around the world. Steve continues to be involved in the subsequent runs of Data Privacy Asia. Steve has advised and assisted multiple organisations on compliance with Singapore’s new personal data protection law, which fully came into force on 2 July 2014. They include organisations from the banking/financial, insurance, property, health & wellness, retail, education, logistics, IT sectors. Steve has assisted many organisations with investigations by the Personal Data Protection Commission (Singapore’s Regulator for personal data protection).