Personalised app, virtual tax-filing assistant among digital initiatives public can look forward to

SINGAPORE — An app that allows parents to access services such as birth registration, baby bonus and National Library Board membership applications will soon be expanded to enable users to manage taxes and Central Provident Fund (CPF) matters.

This is among the digital initiatives that the public can look forward to, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance announced on the first day of the Committee of Supply debates on Friday (Feb 28).

PERSONALISED APP FOR CITIZENS

The Moments of Life (MOL) app will be improved and reorganised with the eventual aim to personalise it to each citizen, said Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation initiative.

The app was first introduced to allow parents to access services such as birth registration, baby bonus and National Library Board membership applications. This was later enhanced to include active ageing services.

While more details about the update will be announced only later this year, Dr Balakrishan on Friday gave some hints of what to expect.

He said that citizens will soon be able to access common government services on MOL — from managing taxes and CPF matters to making event bookings.

In time, citizens will be able to see services and information most relevant to their needs on the homepage of the app, the foreign affairs minister said.

DIGITAL MEDICAL CERTIFICATES

The Singapore Government plans to roll-out a DigiMC, an online version of a hardcopy medical certificate (MC), to the private healthcare sector by the first half of this year

Raffles Medical and Mount Alvernia Hospital will be among the first private healthcare institutions to come on board, while telemedicine providers in the Ministry of Health’s telemedicine sandbox will also be looking into adopting the initiative.

DigiMC was piloted at the National Heart Centre Singapore’s Singapore Armed Forces Clinic in June 2018, followed by Singapore General Hospital’s inpatient clinic in March 2019 and finally SingHealth cluster last year. So far, more than 400,000 digital MCs have been issued.

According to a factsheet by Smart Nation Singapore, using DigiMC is a three-step process.

After a doctor issues a digital MC, the patient will receive an SMS containing a URL to the digital MC. The patient will have to key in his date of birth to unlock it, and he can then forward the digital MC to his employer.

TAX CHATBOT

Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah said the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) has been working with taxi and private-hire car (PHC) drivers on a novel way to simplify tax filing: Using a chatbot.

“Through this collaboration, Iras developed a conversational-style form to help drivers understand the information they need to report,” said Ms Rajah.

She said the form was piloted last year with over 600 drivers who found that this tax filing process was not only more intuitive, but allowed them to spend 30 per cent less time filing their returns.

“Given its success, Iras is working with GovTech on a prototype chatbot, to benefit about 6,000 taxi and PHC drivers during this year’s tax filing season.”

PUNGGOL’S SMART LAMP POSTS

The Government will be expanding its “smart” lamp post trials to Punggol, Dr Balakrishnan said.

These lamp posts are equipped with sensors and cameras to collect a range of data that includes monitoring environmental quality, traffic congestion and crowd safety.

Trials of these lamp posts are ongoing at one-north business park in Buona Vista and Geylang.

While no timeline was given, there are plans to introduce more than 70 of these lamp posts to Punggol.

Dr Balakrishnan said this in response to a question from Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh, who had asked for updates about the current smart lamp post trials.