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Singapore’s brand new GovTech has landed – what will it do for the public sector?
GovTech, a brand new government department, has been set up with the aim to transform the public sector.
The innovation lab for digital services is all part of the realisation of Singapore’s Smart Nation dream, utilising technology to advance the nation and lives of its citizens through harnessing the power of data.
The Government Technology Agency of Singapore, or GovTech for short, is far from the average boring and prosaic government office one might picture.
It’s housed in Mapletree Business City, and the headquarters of the lab are a haven of calm and relaxation.
Source: Mapletre
Source: Mapletree[/caption]
But this is not at all reflective of the dynamism of ideas and creativity found within the walls.
Through the use of data science, analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, GovTech will partner with public agencies, industry and citizens to transform and improve public service delivery.
So what exactly are some of GovTech’s promised initiatives?
Source: Ministry of Communications and Information
MyInfo
MyInfo already exists as a consent-based personal data platform. It stores things like names, addresses, phone numberes and NRIC numbers from a number of government agencies.
Those include the Inland Revenue and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.
The potential of expanding MyInfo to the financial sector will be a priority for GovTech, who will join forces with the Ministry of Finance and the Monetary Authority of Singapore to scope the potential for this.
What it would mean for citizens is a simplified application process with no need to show physical documents for verification. If successfully implemented in the financial sector, it could expand elsewhere.
Parents Gateway
Source: Thinkstock/Getty Images
This new service will run trials at five undisclosed schools starting in November, to gauge the benefits of improving efficiency for things such as paying school fees and signing consent forms.
The obvious benefactors include busy parents. School staff would potentially welcome the removal of the traditional chasing of missing or incomplete forms.
Like many of GovTech’s proposed projects and initiatives, it’s all about streamlining services and improving convenience. An added advantange to the digitisation of the process is that it is much greener than the current paper procedures and save printing costs.
National Trade Platform
Source: Thinkstock/Getty Images
The NTP, as it’s known, will aim to streamline transactions between businesses and the government.
Ultimately, it is hoped the NTP will become the sole platform for commerce information management, supporting companies with things like trade, logistics and more.
Existing platforms like TradeNet and TradeXchange will, in time, be replaced by the NTP.
Financially it is hoped that the new platform could potentially bring up to S$600 million man-hour savings annually for businesses.
The bigger picture
All in all, GovTech is an agency to bring about more efficient use of Singapore citizens’ time. Its services aim to increase convenience for Singaporeans by cutting the time of laborious but necessary day-to-day activities.
Lots of residents will rejoice at less time wasted filling in forms and more time for productive activities. But there are certain elements of GovTech that are questionable.
Data-sharing: a breach of privacy?
Source: Unsplash
Well, in order to provide these services, a considerable amount of data will need to be tracked and stored.
In comes the argument about personal security and privacy, and the ever present worry of overexposure, exploitation or even theft of personal data.
GovTech also plans to explore new ways to harness data, including looking into high-frequency data like electricity consumption and public transport.
It also recently demonstrated how it has used data to present how local economies are doing, although it stresses this service should be used to complement rather than replace existing economic performance indicators.
With projects and targets such as these, as well as the longer-term and larger scale goal of becoming a Smart Nation, critics are going to have to accept that their achievement simply requires increased connectivity and data sharing – which is the backbone of a Smart Nation.
However, the people in charge will have to work hard to find a line between the Smart Nation vision and protecting personal data.
Source: Thinkstock/Getty Images
They’ll also be working hard developing technical expertise in the agency, focussing on application development, cybersecurity, data science, geospatial technology, government ICT infrastructure and sensors and Internet of Things.
Building talent means building the portal size. There are currently more than 600 datasets from 70 public agencies available on the portal.
But GovTech says it aims to be more than just a repository. While it will store data, it will also strive to make it more relevant, applicable and understandable for the public and developers. It’s also easier for the relevant people to access, and this helps to foster what the agency calls “a culture of co-creation.”
(By Sarah Thorp)
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