E-citizen services to anticipate user needs

YOU may soon get a reminder on your mobile phone when it is time to renew your season parking permit.

Or you may get information on where to go for pre-marital counselling when you file a notice at the Registry of Marriages.

Such reminders, information or forms will be delivered to the mobile devices of citizens for their convenience, if the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and its smart-nation engineering team have their way.

Plans are under way to take e-citizen services to the next level to be more "anticipatory", said Jacqueline Poh, IDA managing director.

"We are looking at ways for individuals to be taken care of holistically in their life journeys... and make their experience across the whole of government more seamless."

She was speaking at the Ministry of Communications and Information's annual workplan seminar yesterday.

Such anticipatory e-citizen services involve heavy analysis of citizens' personal data from across multiple government agencies. Agencies can then push relevant information to citizens just when they need it.

For instance, a notice filed at the Registry of Marriages can trigger the sending of pre-marital counselling as well as housing and mortgage loan application information to the couple.

IDA is already partnering 98 government agencies to create citizen-centric e-services. Some have been launched, such as the OneService mobile app that lets residents report municipal issues, including blocked drains.

Other examples are the myResponder app, which calls qualified volunteers to suspected heart-attack cases until emergency services arrive, and the Beeline app, which lets office workers book rides from private bus operators.

itham@sph.com.sg

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