Budget debate: Government needs to share more data and regulate big data, says Nominated MP Lim Sun Sun

SINGAPORE - Nominated MP Lim Sun Sun has called for more data from national-level surveys to be made available for academics and researchers to do evidence-based policy analysis.

Singapore needs to undertake such a strategic move to fully realise its Smart Nation ambitions, she said during the parliamentary debate on the Budget statement on Thursday (Feb 27).

A professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, she believes academics have much to offer to help solve such global problems as rising income inequality, climate change, rising populism and fake news.

"With more concerted regulation around data-sharing, we can ensure that universities are well-equipped with robust data to conduct research for societal benefit," she noted.

Concerns about data security could be addressed by generating "synthetic data" that protects privacy and confidentiality while representing authentic data, she said.

"We should also consider studying the experience of countries such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom that have advanced data-sharing infrastructures and procedures, to identify best practices that we can seek to emulate."

Synthetic data replicates the statistical properties of the actual data-set it is based on but the information cannot be identified with any particular individual.

Prof Lim, who heads the university's Department of Humanities, Arts and Social sciences, also suggested Singapore, which was one of the first countries to launch a Model AI Governance framework, could pioneer regulations on the collection and use of big data.

She noted that Singapore is at a "critical crossroad" in mapping out future growth directions as its economy matures and digitalises.

Big data offers one promising path to explore, she said. "The application of data analytics in virtually all aspects of life, including finance, business, urban planning, healthcare and education, can generate powerful insights for enhancing resource optimisation, service delivery and efficiency gains."

She added: "With data to fuel Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, we can forge a culture of data-driven innovation that aims to raise our quality of life."

But this raises the question of who should own the data and be allowed to profit from it, Prof Lim said, adding that the social compact between people and the companies collecting data from them is "riddled with inequity".

She said technology companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Alibaba have "selfishly hoarded their data" which they use to create market-dominating products and services.

"If we continue to let these Goliaths have exclusive rights to exploit the data that they harvest essentially for free from their users, what chance is there for the scrappy start-ups of the world to innovate for the greater good? We must leave the door wide open for start-ups to compete against incumbents."

Having regulations on big data will have the "twin benefits of levelling the playing field between first-movers and start-ups, and fostering a vibrant pro-innovation environment," she added.