So The Straits Times broke the Internet this morning with the following news:

And we decided to ask the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) about this, as the article left us a little confused.

For instance, the term "public servants" is used — with the knowledge that the "public service" refers to agencies and statutory boards, while "civil service" refers to ministries, does that phrase refer to the public service, or to both the public and civil service?

Will government staff be required to address public queries from their personal phones and data connections from next May onwards?

And most importantly, how is cutting off connection to the internet a solution preferable to educating staff on the basic tenets of cyber security?

This is what the IDA spokesperson told us:

"The Singapore Government regularly reviews our IT security to make our IT network more secure. We have started to separate internet access from the work stations of a selected group of public service officers, and will do so for the rest of the public service officers progressively over a one-year period. There are alternatives for internet access and the work that officers need to do, does not change.

I’d like to also point out that contrary to ST’s piece which gave the impression of an Internet cut-off, public officers can still surf online on their personal devices or agency-issued ones".

In other words, public officers will be given separate devices for official government work and Internet access.

And yes, we've been told by IDA that this will apply government-wide — both public and civil service. So "public servants" are people who work anywhere in the government: ministries, agencies, stat boards.

So this is how we picture public officers in the future.

The end.

Related articles:

10 other measures S’pore can take to ensure public servants are safe from Internet

Here’s how the public service decided that its computers will not have an Internet connection

Top photo from IDA website.

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