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SINGAPORE – The surge in demand for TraceTogether tokens in October was greater than the government expected, said Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary.
He told the House on Wednesday (November 4) that the government had anticipated that it would need to persuade more people to join the TraceTogether program.
“The concern at the time was whether or not there would be enough demand, so we wanted to be prudent in terms of production, (and) launch the process early even when production was increasing,” he said in response to Dr. Tan Wu Meng ( Jurong GRC).
Dr. Tan had asked for the number of tokens distributed at a TraceTogether mobile booth at Clementi Mall on October 25, as well as what lessons can be learned from early distribution experiences.
He recounted how his residents said the tokens were sold out 12 minutes after the collection started at the mall at 11 a.m. that day.
Dr. Janil said that 762 tokens were distributed at Clementi Mall on October 25 and that “the demand was very high.”
Token distribution began in September, and residents were able to collect them at 38 community centers (CCs) last month. But demand for tokens skyrocketed after the government announced that TraceTogether would be required to enter places like restaurants and shopping malls.
Long queues at certain CCs caused the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) to halt the distribution of tokens, before restarting the process on a limited basis as of October 29.
Distribution has resumed in the Marsiling, Woodgrove and Yew Tee CCs, and will roll out to the remaining CCs from now until December.
Dr Janil said that the government had also not anticipated the extent to which people from all over Singapore would go to various places to collect tokens.
“Therefore, we modified our distribution plan so that a certain CC distributes tokens only to residents of that area,” he added.
Lim Biow Chuan (Mountbatten) asked if TraceTogether registrations in theaters would be mandatory on November 16 as previously announced, noting that Mountbatten residents can only start collecting tokens from December 14.
He also asked what residents should do if their token gets damaged or runs out of battery. The token has a battery life of six months.
In response, Dr. Janil said that the mandatory TraceTogether controls with the app or token will not take effect anywhere until the token distribution has been implemented across all CCs.
This means that the public can continue to use older SafeEntry methods such as scanning NRIC barcodes for now.
On replacing damaged tokens or tokens that have drained their batteries, he said the government will give an update closer to the end of the distribution process when it has a clearer idea of the demand.
“Will we have a situation in Singapore where we have to think of a replacement plan for a million tokens or two million tokens or the number in between? (This) can tell us how many collection points or exchange points (we need)” added.
Workers’ Party MP Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) suggested distributing TraceTogether tokens to students in schools before the end of the school term this year, so that parents don’t have to queue at CCs to pick them up for their children.
He also called for more public education on the TraceTogether app, which performs the same function as the token, to reduce queues at CCs. The app, which has sparked complaints about draining phone batteries, should also be improved so that more users are willing to download it, he said.
In response, Dr. Janil said that parents have already been collecting tokens in CCs for their children and that some schools allow their students to carry smartphones, which means they can use the TraceTogether app.
“I agree with (Mr. Giam) that more public education is needed to … reduce misinformation about what the app does,” said Dr. Janil, acknowledging that the app has had problems with drainage of the battery due to the difficulty of optimizing the application for the wide variety of phone models among the public.
“The team is continually improving the app and (already) we’ve seen a significant improvement in performance.”
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