Singapore’s digital responses to Covid-19
Tags: Singapore, Digital, Covid

To combat the pandemic, the city state has rolled out digital platforms to enable contact tracing and border verification. Has its investment in digital infrastructure and talent paid off?

Image credit: Prasit Rodphan/Shutterstock.com

Singapore is a small and young city state in Southeast Asia. It has a population of 5 million, with limited land space, and no natural resources. To ensure that the country has modern infrastructure and talent required to remain competitive, Singapore set up digital-focused organisations such as GovTech and SmartNation (both of which are directly under Prime Minister’s Office).

When the pandemic decimated air travel and Singapore plunged into recession, it was only natural that the country turns to its investment in technology to recover its vitality. Covid-19 has put these taskforces to the test.

In the digital sphere, there are 3 initiatives:

SafeEntry, a national digital check-in system TraceTogether, a contact-tracing system Universal Verifier for test results and vaccination status at borders

1. SafeEntry, the national digital check-in system

SafeEntry is a platform that logs the personal information of individuals when they check-in to a venue. If a Covid-19 positive patient has been identified, the government would have records of the list of people who entered the same venue visited by the patient.

At entry points across Singapore, a QR code is placed at the entrance and exit for visitors to complete their check-in before entering/when exiting. There are 4 options to check in: (1) scan your NRIC on a reader, or scan SafeEntry QR code using your (2) phone, (3) SingPass app, (4) TraceTogether app/token.

SafeEntry app screenshot

A successful implementation requires cooperation from 2 main audience: individuals and businesses.

For most individuals with mobile phones, the process is only a slight inconvenience. 3 out of the 4 options to complete SafeEntry requires scanning of QR codes. This means there is a hassle of locating QR codes, and scanning them (the processing power of which is highly dependent on venue lighting, users’ camera, and app). Ease of implementation is highly correlated with the level of tech-savviness of the population. GovTech took care of the less tech-savvy population by providing the NRIC scan option, and also the ability to check-in on behalf of other parties.

On the other hand, businesses incur costs of employing staffs at entry points, plastering QR codes, and renting/purchasing temperature-taking equipment. For hotspots like shopping malls, additional scanners are required for NRIC check-ins. These are additional costs to bear in addition to the impact that Covid-19 may have brought upon their businesses.

There are many trade-offs for this way of processing check-ins. Even though businesses are required to implement these checks, the burden of the deed lies upon individuals to perform them on their own, using their own devices. Checks are done on a sampling basis as it is impossible for the staff to use ‘eye power’ to check every screen for date/time/location stamp. A digital ID scan to a reader would be a more foolproof way than a QR code-and-show method, but more cost will be required. Nonetheless, unless there is a physical gantry tied to the scan results (like in train stations), someone will always need to be stationed at the entry points to “pressure”.

The best opportunity for businesses would have been the information collected about their patrons. Fortunately, Singapore didn’t choose this shrewed approach to coerce businesses to cooperate. SafeEntry information are encrypted and stored in the government’s server and accessible by authorised public office holders only where necessary. As it is impossible to verify this, it requires trust that the government will not abuse such data for purposes other than contact-tracing.

It is noteworthy that the government was able to enforce SafeEntry on businesses and individuals to a good level of success. As a small country with high digital penetration and data connectivity, it has an advantage in mandating this digital process. Singapore even passed a new law COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020 to lay out the rules for compliance. For countries that have stark contrasting degrees of infrastructure development across its districts/islands, conflicting state-federal laws, or low digital adoption across demographics, enforcement of these measures would have been challenging.

As a stop-gap measure to support contact-tracing, SafeEntry is as good as it could get within such a short timeframe. The current option struck a good balance between cost-minimisation for businesses, and ensuring a decent level of compliance for all individuals.

Worthy of mention: SingPass, a nation’s digital account

Prior to Covid-19, SingPass was mainly used as a password to apply for government services.

As the key information holder, the app rose to the challenge of being a platform for SafeEntry check-ins. I like that it uses biometric authentication so I don’t have to key in my password each time I check-in. It also has clear UI, which is important as the app needs to be friendly across age groups. Very quickly, the SingPass app has evolved to also become a robust channel for SafeEntry.

However, more needs to be done before SingPass can be relied upon as a verification tool. Just the other day, I was denied entry at a local bank branch (POSB) when I tried to use SingPass digital NRIC. It appears that even the nation’s most digitally advanced bank has not adopted the SingPass verification.

2. TraceTogether, a contact tracing system using Bluetooth

TraceTogether (TT) is a contact-tracing system that uses Bluetooth to record the distance between users and the duration of their encounters. It takes the form of an app and a physical token.

TraceTogether app screenshot

When phones with TT installed/ TT tokens are nearby one another, they exchange anonymised proximity information using Bluetooth (not GPS). When an individual tests positive, MOH will collect these information for contact tracing. The main inconvenience for individuals would be having to turn on their Bluetooth at all times.

Managing data privacy

Seeing how the TT system seems capable of trespassing to location tracking, an interesting part of TT lies in its handling of personal data. Unlike the venue information collected by SafeEntry, the proximity logs are kept decentralised on individual phones at all times. However, it’s not completely decentralised. A Covid-19 positive individual needs to upload his logs to the government where contact-tracing experts will be tasked to identify individuals based on the data collected (ie. classifying them as safe/not safe). Singapore chooses this approach to balance between sufficient data protection with the need for accurate identification.

There are plenty of reassurance that TT does not breach personal privacy. The TT open-source source code, OpenTrace, and the BlueTrace Protocol upon which TT was built on, have been published online for global references. In fact, to hammer home the point that TT is laser-focused on managing the pandemic and not as a stalking device for Big Brother, the app will ‘cease functionality at the end of the outbreak.’

People bought this assurance. In fact, more than 70% of Singapore residents did. 2 million have downloaded the app while 1.75 million have collected their free tokens. Smart Nation Minister Vivian said that ‘TraceTogether may be the world’s most successful digital contact tracing programe”.

In the semi-ideal world for contact tracing, the government would have a live map that identifies all individuals and tracks their exact locations across Singapore at all times. It could even report the position of their masks to assess the potential for transmission. When activated, it could easily shortlist suspected individuals by plotting the time spent, distance apart from others, and the status of their masks in those periods. But in the real world, we can only do a proxy of such proximities and transmission potential. When Singapore soon mandates only TT-SafeEntry check-ins, it would provide the best proxies for first 2 data points; location and proximities.

For a temporary solution that is expected to cease together with the outbreak, Singapore is investing significantly to develop the software, ensure its security, design and manufacture the tokens, and coordinate the distribution across the island. There is no doubt that it takes contact-tracing very seriously.

The county’s small population and size, good digital foundations, and strong enforcement power have contributed to the rapid adoption of these digital platforms.

3. Universal verifier for test results

In lieu of an available vaccine, countries still need to rely on COVID-19 test results to determine who should be allowed through its borders.

Currently, paper certifications used at borders are susceptible to fraud and errors. In recent times, a few firms have announced plans to create digital health passports using blockchain. Accredited labs will issue a health certificate, such as a QR code, to passengers for them to present at borders.

The UI screenshot of a trial to verify test results and vaccination status from foreign clinics and hospitals

Given that Singapore welcomes over 20 million tourists each year, there is a much pressing need to verify foreign health certifications than to issue one. Hence, it makes sense for Singapore to invest in a universal verifier so that certifications from hospitals worldwide can be read. Singapore Airlines is working with IATA and Affinidi to trial such digital verification of health certificates, and has met with some successes. On 23 Dec, a returning Singaporean from Japan has successfully verified his digital heath certificate via a verifier at Changi Airport. If implemented across countries, Singapore could set the stage for a global standard for travelling.

When vaccination adoption is added as a requirement for travel entry, this universal verifier may even include vaccination status of the individual.

Conclusion

Generally, Singapore has done well in creating these platforms quickly for contact tracing to contain local transmission. The county’s small population and size, good digital foundations, and strong enforcement power have contributed to the rapid adoption of these digital platforms.

In terms of execution, it created a robust MVP that the country can work with (ie. various check-in options), while working on a dedicated service (TT). In the meantime, other apps like SingPass benefited from digital enhancement. When the use of SafeEntry is deflected to TT, SingPass will be positioned to tap on its huge pool of existing userbase to grow.

While adopting a tech-approach to contact tracing, Singapore did well in ensuring its implementation strikes a balance between efficacy, business cost, and societal needs, so that all things considered, deploying them provides more benefit than costs. It removed the requirement for a exit check, relied upon sampling, and ensured that less digitally-savvy are taken care of. It has communicated these initiatives clearly, and made information available in multiple languages.

To the “sensitive flowers of the West”, these mandatory information collection may seem like a blatant infringement of freedom and privacy. These concerns have thus far not hit the Asian shores in Singapore yet. Generally, I believe that the people in Singapore are still prioritizing the interest of the country above that of the individual. After all, there is no individual to talk about when the virus can very well wipe out the small population. There’s also a ‘stick’ — Singapore’s ability to enforce its laws on people who violate the rules. Facing these sombre options, the default path would be to trust in GovTech’s assurance of privacy concerns.

It was prudent to set up its digital taskforces early so that it could react quickly at a time like now. There are other activities under its digital road map that i didn’t mention (Hawkers Go Digital e-payment adoption, and other tech-related plans). But it required a force as big as Covid-19 to accelerate them.

It would be foolish to think that we have arrived at the end of the game. SafeEntry and TT are platforms created in response to changes. It must have been costly and excruciating to scramble them together. Moving forward, Singapore should take these learnings and deploy technology to prepare for changes, or even better, to direct the way the changes are going to happen. As a country that has become successful relying on global connectivity, nowhere else do we see this desperation unfolding as much as the air travel sector. Hence, a universal verifier would be a key thing to assess if Singapore has the leadership and technological potential to guide changes and thrive in the future.