The Smart Nation is an initiative by the

Government of Singapore The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of Singapore to mean the executive branch of the state, which is made up of the president and the Cabinet. Although the president acts in their personal discretion in the exercise ...

to harness infocomm technologies, networks and

big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

to create tech-enabled solutions.

Overview

The Smart Nation was an initiative launched by Prime Minister

Lee Hsien Loong Lee Hsien Loong (; born 10 February 1952) is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Par ...

on 24 November 2014. In financial year 2017, the government had set aside $2.4 billion to support the initiative, which involves the government purchasing services from technology startups rather than offering grants to support them. To support development,

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

is made available at government portals such as Data.gov.sg. Some areas of focus include enhancing public transport networks, enabling successful aging and ensuring a secure but open data marketplace. The Smart Nation Sensor Platform (SNSP) tracks and analyses data related to housing, amenities and public infrastructure. Former civil servant, Peter Ong, explained that this ''“encompasses hardware like lamp-posts and public cameras, as well as software that enables sensor data exchange and data and video analytics”''. An interconnected network of 110,000 lamp posts with wireless sensors will collate data that will be used for urban and operational planning, maintenance and incident response. The Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGO) and

Government Technology Agency The Government Technology Agency (GovTech) is a statutory board of the Government of Singapore, under the Prime Minister's Office. It was restructured from Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA) in 2016, and officially legislated i ...

(GovTech) under the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) lead the development of a National Digital Identity framework for online transactions between citizens and businesses, building on the current SingPass system.

Recognition

Singapore emerged top in the 2017 Global Smart City Performance Index by Juniper Research and Intel. The ranking is based on the integration of

Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

(IoT) technologies and connected services, and which the nation came out tops in all four of the key areas measured—mobility, healthcare, public safety and productivity.

Ministerial committee

The initiative is coordinated by the SNDGO and supported by other government agencies. GovTech is also placed under the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) as the implementing agency of SNDGO. Collectively, the SNDGO and GovTech form the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG). The SNDGG is overseen by a Ministerial Committee chaired by

Teo Chee Hean Teo Chee Hean ( zh, s=张志贤, poj=Tiuⁿ Chì-hiân, p=Zhāng Zhìxián; born 27 December 1954) is a Singaporean politician and former two-star rear-admiral who has been serving as Senior Minister of Singapore since 2019 and Coordinating Min ...

. The other members of the Ministerial Committee are

Josephine Teo Josephine Teo Li Min (née Yong; zh, s=杨莉明, t=楊莉明, poj=Iôⁿ Lī-bêng, p=Yáng Lìmíng; born 1968) is a Singaporean politician who has been serving as Minister for Communications and Information and Minister-in-charge of the Cyb ...

Vivian Balakrishnan Vivian Balakrishnan ( ta, விவியன் பாலகிருஷ்ணன்; born 1961) is a Singaporean politician, diplomat and former ophthalmologist who has been serving in the Cabinet as Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2015. A m ...

Chan Chun Sing Chan Chun Sing ( zh, s=陈振声, p=Chén Zhènshēng; born 9 October 1969) is a Singaporean politician and former major-general who has been serving as Minister for Education since 2021 and Minister-in-charge of Public Service since 2018. A m ...

S. Iswaran S. Iswaran ( ta, எஸ் ஈஸ்வரன்; born 1962) is a Singaporean politician who has been serving as Minister for Transport since 2021 and Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations since 2018. A member of the governing People's Action P ...

and

Janil Puthucheary Janil Arusha Puthucheary ( ta, ஜனில் புதுச்சேரி; born 1972) is a Malaysian-born Singaporean politician and paediatrician who has been serving as Minister of State for Communications and Information since 2018 and M ...

and will also coordinate GovTech's strategy with

Info-communications Media Development Authority The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) is a statutory board under the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI). History Following the passing of the Info-communications Media Development Authority Bill in Parliame ...

's (IMDA) industry development efforts.

Ministerial Committee

Smart Nation Initiative

As part of the Smart Nation initiative, the Government of Singapore has been introducing cashless payments on a large scale. Various efforts have been made to incorporate the use of cashless payment into citizens' lives.

Land Transport Authority Initiative

In March 2017, the

Land Transport Authority The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Transport of the Government of Singapore. History Incorporation of Land Transport Authority Land Transport Authority (LTA) was established on 1 September 1995, f ...

(LTA) began an account-based ticketing pilot that allowed Mastercard users to use their debit and credit cards to pay for public transportation. In August, the LTA and TransitLink announced plans to have a fully cashless public transport system by 2020. Beginning in September 2017, cash top up services were removed from MRT stations, and they were fully phased out by March 2018. In April 2019, commuters could begin using Mastercard contactless bank cards to pay for their fares and this payment method was extended to Visa cardholders in May.

Cashless system at hawker centres

During the National Day Rally speech in 2017, plans for a unified cashless payment system in Singapore were unveiled, especially in regard to payments at hawker centres.

DBS Bank DBS Bank Limited, often known as DBS, is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at the Marina Bay Financial Centre in the Marina Bay district of Singapore. The bank was previously known as The Dev ...

OCBC Bank Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited (), often known as OCBC Bank (), is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in OCBC Centre, Singapore. OCBC Bank was born out of the Great Depression thr ...

and

United Overseas Bank United Overseas Bank Limited (), often known as UOB, is a Singaporean multinational banking corporation headquartered in Singapore, with branches mostly found in most Southeast Asian countries. Founded in 1935 as United Chinese Bank (UCB) by S ...

, which jointly own the existing electronic transaction system NETS, had collaborated with other banks such as

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

Maybank Malayan Banking Berhad (doing business as Maybank) is a Malaysian universal bank, with key operating "home markets" of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. According to the 2020 Brand Finance report, Maybank is Malaysia's most valuable bank b ...

Standard Chartered Standard Chartered plc is a multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 9 ...

Bank and

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to unify the cashless system in Singapore. Consumer from all seven banks will be able to use Nets'

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

system to make payments at hawker stalls. More than 600 stalls had implemented the system in 2017. As a subsidiary of

, contactless transport payment card operator

EZ-Link The EZ-Link card is a rechargeable contactless smart card and electronic money system that is primarily used as a payment method for public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, o ...

has also partnered up with NETS to introduce e-payment methods in local hawker centres. Starting from April 2018, payment at hawker centres can be carried out using EZ-Link or Nets card using a single Nets terminal. There were mixed responses from the food vendors. Several stall owners expressed their opinions on the efficiency of the system, stating that sometimes the cashless electronic transactions do not go through, causing delays in the queue of the business. Others mentioned that the new system can prevent hygiene issues, which might occur when cash is involved.

Surveillance concerns and issues

With the gradual implementation of the Smart Nation initiatives, there are new concerns raised by security experts that the ubiquitous surveillance, with the proposed "Lamppost-as-a-Platform" (LaaP) with extensive facial recognition technology, could undermine individual privacy. There were also concerns that the expectation of mass surveillance by the government could also result in "self-surveillance, self-monitoring, self-censorship", and a general aversion to "improvise, innovate and take risks". The government responded by stating that the Public Sector (Governance) Act passed in January 2018 clarifies when

data sharing Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to other investigators. Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are consid ...

is allowed across government agencies, as well as which agency is responsible for the request and sharing of data. Public servants' data access rights is given based on security clearance and authorisation. The Act also criminalises the sharing of personal data without authorisation and the using of data for self-benefit or for the re-identification of anonymised data without authorisation. The government also stated that it has no plans to use the surveillance methods for the purposes of social credit scoring or moral policing.

Cybersecurity

The failure of the government in securing data in recent years, such as in the SingHealth data breach in July 2018, is causing critics to push for a rethink of the Smart Nation drive.

External links

Official Website
* Prime Minister's Office Singapore

References

{{Reflist 2014 establishments in Singapore Singapore government policies Sustainable urban planning Smart cities