Workers' Party chief Pritam Singh asks ministers about ACRA's stance on NRIC numbers and govt policy

0:00 sir in July last year this house passed the Acra registry and Regulatory enhancements Bill amongst other things the bill introduced a framework that sought to protect the confidentiality of personal information by limiting Public Access and allowing only specific parties access for the purposes of fulfilling regulatory obligations minister andani in moving the bill confirmed that the bill laid the groundwork for the enhanced bis file system that was targeted for launch at the end of 2024 no mention was made in The Minister's second reading speech is about the government's uh new approach Visa V NC numbers a public consultation was also undertaken for the bill in March 20 which was published in March 2024 in this consultation Akra had I had proposed and I quote to partially mask

0:46 the identification numbers of all individuals in acra's registers which are made available to the public and introduce a contact address that will be shown to the public unquote there was some feedback to this proposal principally related to corporate transpar Y and know your client requirements Akra responded to this and said I quote on the proposal to mask identification numbers the concerns on requiring access to full identification numbers have been duly noted we will review this further and provide an update in due course unquote so my first question as the issue of the masking of NR numbers was clearly in acra's contemplation for the purposes of the amendment bill in July 2024 when did Akra int to provide an update to its public consultation and in

1:32 view of the reply if I heard correctly from the minister the circular came into being in July 2024 when was Acra intending to provide an update to its public consultation and why did it go ahead especially in view of these public representations secondly Akra and the government would have been acutely aware that the public treats NC numbers as personal data and for personal data privacy reasons and that these should not be disclosed to the public I think Minister acknowledged that in her in her minister josephin to acknowledged that but on the back of in 2022 on the back of amendments to various corporate statutes the point was acknowledged in Annex a of a public consultation exercise for another bill that n numbers are confidential information my second

2:19 question therefore is in view of the serious and significant public concern about how unmasking NC numbers took place could have occurred so easily despite enough feedback of about not just how the public but Acra itself views the sanctity of niic numbers by virtue of its consultation exercises in 2022 and 2024 surely the matter would have had to be brought to Parliament instead of Simply interpreting a circular from the ministry that's the second query to the to to the minister and finally I note my question uh 25 in yesterday's order paper uh subsections B to D of that question really have not been answered so I would appreciate a reply from the minister thank

3:05 you Minister indrani um if the lead of the opposition just give me a moment to check the notes on this okay um ju just a few things um I don't have all the details of what the Lo has asked but uh what I can give him is some of the details um first the the public consult the summary of the public consultation uh was issued in April of 2024 um and in the summary of the

3:53 consultation what was said was this I think under the proposal right to partially mask the ident ification number of all individuals in acra's registers which were made available to the public and introduce a contact address as the default address of individuals that will be shown to the public instead of the individual's residential address so feedback some respondents Express concerns on the need to have uh access to full identification numbers and other personal data for corporate transparency and compliance with know your client's requirements some respondents sought a clarification on whether there would be still sufficient information to identify an officer an office holder that is tied to

4:40 a particular business entity on acra's registers so the first piece of feedback that you can see is that there two types uh some Express concern about you know um having full identification numbers uh made available others needed to know uh how to identify the right person acra's response was to proceed with the proposal to introduce a contact address as the default address of individuals that will be shown to the public on the proposal to mass identification numbers the concerns on requiring access to full identification numbers have been duly noted we will R review this further and provide an update in due course I think that's what uh the L was referring to so

5:25 my understanding and this is going to have to be dealt with more of uh deeply in the review because uh they will have they they'll be looking into the matter but my understanding was when arra was looking at this they were deciding whether or not to even give full NC numbers but on the mddi I side of the house the they had been indicating that they were reviewing this um and so that was put on hold then after that the July circular came along and the misunderstanding occurred and then that's what happened so that is the short sequence of what I know but the review panel will look into this in more detail

6:15 Mr uh okay Mr Singh Mr Singh uh Mr speaker thank you it's not a new supplementary question but I I had other questions specifically pertaining to question 25 on yesterday's order paper which uh was sorry could you say that again uh I had also asked uh other questions in my PQ uh Part B to D it was on yesterday's order paper and it was question 25 I think those been answered okay and and there was another query uh with regard to why the data issues didn't come back to Parliament but I think Minister has said it's part of the review so uh I think that's answered but uh the uh original PQ there are still component which have

7:00 not which is the first part of your question right yeah to you're referring to the questions that was F in yesterday's PQ perhaps uh for for the convenience of the ministers I can just repeat the question uh the specific components all right um to ask the minister of digital development and information when was the ministry circular that sought to change the practice of masking and RC numbers dated and communicated to government agencies I think Minister answered by saying July 2024 Part B was when did the ministry determined that such a change was necessary and began planning for it see whether any whole of government discussions took place before and after

7:46 the issuance of the circular and D how many other agencies apart from Acra misread or misunderstood the circular thank you ministero uh Mr Speaker in response to the member's question for the circular minute to have been issued in July I don't have the exact date when the discussion started it would have to be months before that that this was already discussed to his question were whether there were whole of government discussions as would be typical of a change of this nature besides issuing circulars that would also have been briefings and the briefings would have

8:32 allowed for clarifications um then upon those clarifications it would also be quite a common practice amongst government agencies to compile frequently asked questions in order to provide useful references to colleagues so I can share with a member that these things did take place now as to how exactly the incidents unfolded I seek the members understanding and members uh kind support at this juncture if we were to start pointing to this particular event that particular

9:18 occasion it would still not allow us to peace together the whole picture and if such episod events were discussed you could invite further questions and I think what could be even more difficult is if we gave the impression that there was a effort to conceal certain parts of the process because we were only talking about parts of it so I think I would uh refrain from further citing specific events leading to the incident of 9th December the launch of the new Bisal and the other

10:06 Associated events around it so I seek the members understanding that it would not be a very good idea for us to keep going into the specific details