I am surprised that to date, I have never received a single government survey request through Singpass, given the immense power available through this vehicle. 

Almost every citizen has a mobile phone and a Singpass ID. The Singpass ID provides a platform to do sharply targeted government surveys, by gender, race, age, tax bracket, household annual value, and area; and many other metrics or views that might be needed to get very accurate survey findings to aid in different policy decisions. 

Perhaps the concern is an invasion of privacy? Or citizens feeling bombarded with unwanted government survey requests? 

These concerns can be managed easily. The surveying ministry teams need not get actual individual identifying data from the surveys, as these can be easily masked, similar to how Google masks individual identifiers when it provides survey data to paying researchers or advertisers. 

A government asking regularly for views, opinions and feedback from its citizens cannot be a bad thing, and citizens can decide whether to respond to the survey.

The surveys also need not be beamed to every citizen through SMS or WhatsApp in an intrusive way. They could simply be routinely posted on a survey section in the Singpass app and flagged for citizens to view and choose to respond to if they wish.

While Singpass could possibly even provide a new democratised platform for actual voting on shaping policy in the new Forward Singapore world, that might be a step too far in the future.

To begin with, surveys that seek to take regular and widespread citizen opinions on various matters could be a good first step. 

Rahul Patwardhan