Government says digital transformation requires security.
Singapore will commit another $50 million over the next five years to bolster its digital trust capabilities. According to Josephine Teo Minister for Communications and Information, this initiative will bring together industry players, research institutions, and institutes of higher learning to drive research and translation, in technologies that support digital trust principles such as safety, transparency, and accountability.
This will also provide businesses and consumers with greater assurance and confidence as they digitalise.
According to Minister Teo it will also unlock new opportunities in the following areas:
- Trusted Analysis, where businesses can derive insights while preserving data privacy
- Trusted Identity, where identity can be verified and authenticated even as new
- decentralised architectures emerge
- Trusted Accreditation, where products and services are tested and audited to provide assurance to consumers.
“Singapore has also gone further and deeper, to build trust in specific domains like AI. In recent years, there has been greater attention on AI governance,” she stated. “The growing adoption of AI has made regulators and consumers more sensitive towards its trustworthiness. The proliferation of AI guidelines and frameworks reflects a common desire to move from principles to practice.”
Minister Teo said Model AI Governance Framework, its accompanying self-assessment guide, and industry use cases are not only useful to practitioners, but also contribute to the global discourse on AI ethics and governance. Sectors such as healthcare have also adapted the framework to provide sector-specific guidance to their stakeholders.
“At the same time, Singapore recognises the difficulties faced by organisations and regulators in objectively verifying and validating AI systems,” noted the Minister. “We are developing testing and certification programmes that allow industry to achieve greater transparency around AI systems, and enable organisations to deploy AI systems in a trusted manner.”
She stated that even with Singapore’s best efforts, the Government alone cannot create a trusted digital environment for our people and businesses.
“We will need credible and reliable partners to achieve common goals. They include other governments, businesses, researchers, think-tanks. Each play a useful role in creating a safer digital environment,” stated the Minister.
“On our part, we will continue to strengthen the global digital ecosystem by adopting a balanced, collaborative, and interoperable approach. Bilaterally, we have signed a number of digital MOUs on AI cooperation with our partners, including Japan, Spain, and just this week, Thailand and Egypt. Multilaterally, we will continue to actively engage in discussions on AI at multilateral platforms, such as UNESCO and the OECD.”
Singapore will also continue to advance the responsible and human-centric development and use of AI through the Global Partnership on AI, of which we are a founding member.
“We will also continue to work with like-minded partners to develop a credible Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for testing and certification, and explore collaborations to support interoperability of our MVP with emerging global regulatory requirements,” stated Minister Teo.
