SingPass app allows signing of documents online
Signing legal and business documents online will be made possible with the roll-out of a new feature on national digital identity system SingPass.
Its first user is the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), which is piloting the technology to allow the digital signing of property caveats e-lodged with the SLA.
The new Sign with SingPass feature is available on SingPass Mobile, an all-in-one app that stores the NRIC barcodes and personal details of 2.1 million users.
The app lets users access online government services by scanning their fingerprints or faces on their smartphones without needing to enter a password.
With the new digital signing feature, it will also enable the virtual signing of documents.
The signature is encrypted and linked to the signee, whose identity is automatically validated against the Government's database at the point of signing.
GovTech, which developed the tool, said the new feature is timely as the Covid-19 pandemic has seen individuals and companies choose virtual options when conducting government transactions.
"Through Sign with SingPass, businesses will save cost and manpower by removing the manual processes of verifying physical paperwork," Mr Kok Ping Soon, chief executive of GovTech, said in a statement.
To start, the user calls up the SingPass Mobile app on his phone and launches the scan function. When he clicks on a document ready for signing on his computer, a unique QR code will be launched on the screen.
He scans the QR code with the SingPass Mobile app to initiate a signing request, and the app scans his face or fingerprint to authenticate the process.
The initiative is in line with the Digital Government Blueprint target of letting citizens complete between 90 per cent and 95 per cent of their e-government transactions without leaving their homes by 2023.
During signing, confidential data residing in the documents will not be transferred between these platforms and GovTech. Only an encrypted, random code representing the signed document will be transferred.
Private-sector organisations keen to use Sign with SingPass for digital services can register their interest at go.gov.sg/sign.
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