4 July, 2016
Plans to prevent public sector employees in Singapore from accessing the internet at work raise questions about the country's ability to meet its ambition of becoming a 'smart nation', an expert has said.
Technology law specialist Bryan Tan of Pinsent Masons MPillay, the Singapore joint venture partner of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said it is unclear how the Singapore government's plans to curb internet access among public sector workers "can sit together" with its smart nation ambitions. However, he said the move "does illustrate the conundrum that modern organisations reaping online benefits must also address online risks too".
Tan recently said that more services and data are likely to be stored on the cloud and that there would be wider adoption of cloud technologies by Singapore organisations as part of the push towards creating a smart nation.
Singapore's government launched its plans to develop the world's first smart nation built on the latest technologies in 2014. It has committed billions of Singapore dollars to the initiative, which includes using technology to improve healthcare and home energy consumption as well as digital services provided by the government.
According to a report by Straits Times, though, the Singapore government intends to cut public service employees' access to the internet at work by May 2017. The move is intended to tighten cybersecurity and internet connections on approximately 100,000 computers will be cut off as part of the measure, the report said.
It is unclear what the full extent of the restriction on public sector staff in Singapore will entail. Straits Times reported that staff will be able to use personal devices to access the internet and forward emails from work accounts to personal accounts under the new conditions. The BBC reported that a spokesperson for the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) in Singapore told it that whilst forwarding non-work emails would be permitted; forwarding work emails would be prohibited.
Out-Law.com has asked the IDA for a statement to confirm its rationale for the move.
According to the BBC report, a spokesperson for the IDA said: "The Singapore government regularly reviews our IT security to make our IT network more secure. We have started to separate internet access from the work stations of a selected group of public service officers, and will do so for the rest of the public service officers progressively over a one year period."
For further information, please contact:
Mohan Pillay, Partner, Pinsent Masons
mohan.pillay@pinsentmasons.com
