More than 150 government services to be linked to digital vault, Latest Singapore News - The New Paper
Singapore

More than 150 government services to be linked to digital vault

This article is more than 12 months old

By June, Singaporeans and permanent residents opening bank accounts with OCBC, UOB, DBS and Standard Chartered Bank will no longer need to key in information such as their NRIC number and address, or submit physical documents to verify such data.

Instead, they can give their consent for such information to be pulled digitally from a government-backed digital vault of their personal data - MyInfo - which was launched in May last year.

The pilot with the first four banks was announced by Second Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong during the debate on his ministry's budget in Parliament yesterday.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) and Ms Foo Mee Har (West Coast GRC) had asked for updates on the Government's digital efforts.

Mr Wong, who is also Minister for National Development, added that by next year, more than 150 government digital services will be linked to MyInfo, which people can access by logging in with their SingPass.

"One inconvenience that you hear from people is that they need to submit the same data repeatedly to different government agencies, and provide supporting documents to verify their data," said Mr Wong.

Created by the Government Technology Agency (GovTech), MyInfo now pulls residents' data - such as name, NRIC number and registered address - from six public agencies.

These include the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The data in the consolidated repository - which has 100,000 citizen and PR sign-ups so far - can be used to automatically fill up digital forms required by a handful of e-services provided by nine agencies now.

The services include applying for or renewing work permits for domestic helpers, and applying for public housing.

Mr Wong acknowledged the need to educate people on MyInfo's benefits to improve the sign-up rate.

"Ultimately, the person must also give consent for their data to be shared for privacy reasons," he said.

The Government is also exploring a one-stop platform to allow payments through mobile phones, potentially consolidating bills from public agencies, he added. No details are available.

Also in the pipeline are plans to improve government digital services for businesses. The percentage of businesses surveyed last year who were satisfied with government e-services was 68 per cent. In comparison, 77 per cent of citizens surveyed said they were very satisfied with such services.

"Many businesses need to go through the process of applying for grants and government licences," Mr Wong said. "We will strive to make these transactions more convenient."

BANKSLawrence WongSingapore