Govt working with businesses to cut paperwork for customers
SINGAPORE — Customers may soon be able to do away with manually putting their signatures on paper, as well as fewer administrative processes, as the Government works on piloting digital signatures and document vaults with businesses.
Customers may soon be able to do away with manually putting their signatures on paper, as well as fewer administrative processes, as the Government works on piloting digital signatures and document vaults with businesses. Photo: Helloquence/Unsplash
SINGAPORE — Customers may soon be able to do away with manually putting their signatures on paper, as well as fewer administrative processes, as the Government works on piloting digital signatures and document vaults with businesses.
These are part of new digital services being tested out with businesses, said Minister-in-charge of the Government Technology Agency Janil Puthucheary in Parliament on Tuesday (Oct 3).
Digital signatures allow consumers to sign online contracts and documents, enabling transactions to be made without the need to be physically present to ink signatures on physical contracts.
A document vault is a one-stop repository for citizens to upload documents needed for online transactions. For example, one can upload financial and academic documents that organisations will be able to access — with the individual’s consent — to process applications and transactions.
The government is already working on a mobile software token-based authentication system expected to be better than the existing SingPass, but wants to increase efficiency of business processes.
For example, there would be less need for counter services and the processing of paper forms, he said.
Consultations with several industry sectors have been started, and there are plans to conduct trials for value-added services with companies. These will include digital signatures and document vaults, which will be developed in 2019, he said.
But Dr Janil did not specify the companies GovTech is in discussions with, in his response to Member of Parliament (MacPherson) Tin Pei Ling, who had sought an update on the digital identity system.
The NDI will create opportunities for new business models, added Dr Janil, who is Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information.
“Beyond security and convenience, our larger goals include enhancing the efficiency of our enterprises and business processes. A fully functioning national identity system and e-payment platform will enable the delivery of more innovative services to a wider client base at lower cost,” he said.
The Government is also studying biometric systems, such as facial recognition, to “enhance the security for identification, authentication and authorisation”.
It is particularly interested in platforms that would make the national identity system convenient for the elderly, the young and the disabled to use, he added.
The standards of usability of government websites for persons with disabilities will be further raised this year, he said in response to a question from Non-Constituency MP Leon Perera. For instance, standards to improve the user experience for older adults will be incorporated, such as having audio captions in large font.
In the last three years, 90 per cent of all government websites were found to have complied with the international Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, said Dr Janil. Such websites have features including the ability to resize text without assistive technology and captions for videos, among others.