The Singapore government’s disclosure on January 4 that in addition to COVID-19 contact tracing, TraceTogether data could be used for the purpose of criminal investigations, has been seen as a betrayal of public trust and policy back-pedalling. In an analysis, NTU RSIS senior fellow Teo Yi-Ling and research fellow Muhammad Faizal Abdul Rahman wrote about what a decline in trust mean for Singapore’s Smart Nation efforts, in which surveillance plays a prominent role.

…Teo Yi-Ling is a Senior Fellow and Muhammad Faizal Abdul Rahman is a Research Fellow in the Cyber and Homeland Defence Programme with the Centre of Excellence of National Security (CENS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.