Singapore’s historic data breach enters a public consultation phase

All submissions should be submitted by 31 October

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A mix of public and private hearings will be held from September 21 to October 5, 2018, at Singapore’s Supreme Court

A committee of inquiry (COI) was set up in the aftermath of Singapore’s historic data breach on its healthcare system, which targetted SingHealth impacting 1.5 million patients including the prime minister.

The COI was set up to study the events and contributing factors that led to a breach of this scale and provide recommendations to the government on how to ensure such an event never happens again.

Chaired by retired chief district judge Richard Magnus the COI held its first hearing on 28 August behind closed doors due to national security concerns.

In line with the work of the COI the general Singapore public have been invited to submit written representations in three areas, namely, recommending measures to enhance incident response plans, recommending ways to better protect SingHealth’s patient database system against similar attacks, and suggesting measures to reduce the risk of such cyber security attacks on public sector IT systems.

Member of the public who wish to submit their written representation should include their name, occupation, address, contact number and email address.

Furthermore, other requirements include a brief description of the organisation (if any) that the representation is made on behalf of; any financial or other interest that the author (and the organisation he/ she represents) has in the COI’s TOR; and whether the author is willing to appear before the COI to give evidence if required.

“The COI will determine whether to call any of the authors to give evidence at the hearing and if so, whom,” said a statement released by the ministry of communication and information.

“The COI may also seek clarification from authors on their written representations as well as subsequently publish any written representations it receives."

All submissions should be submitted by 31 October 2018, at 5 pm.