Forum: Inquiry into unmasking of IC numbers should not lower morale of public officers

The move by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) to unmask NRIC numbers was attributed to a misunderstanding of an internal circular issued by the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (

Misunderstanding of internal govt circular led to unmasking of NRIC numbers on Bizfile: Acra

, Dec 19).

Second Finance Minister Indranee Rajah said the Government is reviewing the incident to identify areas where communication and coordination between agencies can be improved. And it is premature to say if anything is going to happen to particular staff.

This is not the first time a major mistake in public administration has happened.

In 2017, the Government was defrauded of $39.9 million when dispensing SkillsFuture subsidies to training providers that were later found to be shell companies. The perpetrators were tried in court and sentenced to jail terms.

The current episode does not involve public funds, but it is no less disturbing. It affected Singaporeans directly and at a personal level; personal information protected by law was suddenly made available on a government service platform.

It is important for government agencies to learn from each episode to improve governance and administrative practices.

I want to make two points regarding the inquiry into the NRIC numbers incident.

First, the inquiry process should not further lower the morale of the public officers involved. The inquiry is not a witch-hunt, however politically embarrassing the incident might be, given the huge amount of ground reaction on social media. 

Second, the inquiry report (at least its essence) should be disclosed: what happened, the lessons learnt and the recommended improvements to administrative procedures and practices. Such disclosure is not a general practice. However, transparency is an essential element for public trust.

Let our public service be an even better one after this.

Lim Soo Ping