Even better was the government statement “TraceTogether is used for infection control and isolation only”.

Then a year later they used it to solve a crime. When called out on the prior statement said “oh, well, we’d only use it for serious crimes”. They then pass a bill legalizing using it for criminal investigations.

Sounds good to me. Singapore is the only country you could walk around with 10k hanging out of your back pocket and no one will touch you.

Friend left their phone in mall bathroom and 4 hours later when she went back it was still there.

I mean hey, if authoritarianism is a plus to you, have at it. Not to mention the government promising X, then doing the opposite, then quietly passing a law to make it legal.

And no, petty theft is not that uncommon in Singapore, it’s just not broadly reported on. Not to mention the 3 public knife incidents in the last few weeks.

Yes, you can leave stuff on a table, yes it’s remarkably safe to walk around at night, but to pretend things don’t get stolen, people don’t get robbed is fanciful but regularly promoted by the government.

I friend of a friend worked for the SPF and said “a lot of crime never makes the news”.

And don’t get me wrong it’s a very unique place with a lot of benefits. But it’s also a system with some weak checks and balances that so far has been run by pretty benevolent leaders, but it’s a bit weird being there and seeing it in action. There is definitely a bit of “if we don’t talk about it it’s not a problem”.

You can do that pretty much in Saudi Arabia as well.

You can even do that in Montréal.

Please re-read the sentence. The TraceTogether app can be used or the picture id. But the information in TraceTogether is the same as in your NRIC/FIN. So you are authenticating with two strong keys phone number and NRIC / FIN wherever you go. The "ambassadors" walked around taking pictures. I think you combined two parts of the sentence into one.