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SINGAPORE – Schools will distribute TraceTogether (TT) tokens to students so they can participate in the national contact tracing program, said the minister in charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, Vivian Balakrishnan.
This move will complement efforts to distribute the tokens in community clubs (CCs) across the island, and Dr. Balakrishnan added that the government intends to distribute five million tokens by the end of February.
“We will also distribute tokens through schools … Those of you with children or students, don’t worry. You don’t need to rush to the community clubs. You can also pick up a token at school in due time,” he said. on Wednesday (December 23).
I was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a TT token distribution exercise at Kampong Kembangan CC in Eunos.
In a statement Wednesday, the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) said more details on this will be shared later, and that students do not need to have their tokens when the school reopens next year.
The tokens have been distributed to the public since September on CC. Since the end of October, they have been distributed one district at a time to avoid long lines.
On Wednesday, Dr. Balakrishnan said that the government had increased its order for TT tokens and that, by the end of February, it would have made and distributed up to five million tokens.
The TT app and the token work by exchanging short distance Bluetooth signals with other nearby TT apps or tokens. This proximity data, which is encrypted and stored for 25 days before being automatically deleted, enables quick contact tracing.
Dr Balakrishnan also touched on how there are currently different TT token designs being distributed and said that apart from what they look like they all work the same.
There are currently four different token designs currently being distributed, he said, adding that the design of the tokens has been changing based on improvements made to them.
But Dr. Balakrishnan emphasized that all four tokens work the same way, and it doesn’t matter which one people use, they all work fine.
“We wanted these tokens to be able to last six to nine months, and that’s why you realize that, especially in the initial designs, we provided quite a bit of room for battery life,” he said.
“But along the way we have also kept reiterating the design, and that is why you see that today there are four different designs, but they are all fully functional and all have the same ease.”
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