Public Sector (Governance) (Amendment) Bill introduced to support data sharing with external partners
27 November 2025
On 5 November 2025, the Public Sector (Governance) (Amendment) Bill (“Bill”) was introduced in Parliament for first reading.
The Bill seeks to amend the Public Sector (Governance) Act 2018 (“Act”) to better support service delivery by authorised community groups and other private sector partners (“external partners”) that work closely with public sector agencies to deliver services to Singaporeans on the public sector’s behalf. To allow these external partners to deliver such services more effectively, there may be a need for the Government to share relevant data, with appropriate safeguards. Such data could include facts, statistics, and data sets that may involve individuals or businesses.
The amendments will provide a clear legal basis under the existing seven purposes supporting public interest (described below), for public agencies to share data with these partners. To ensure that these authorised external partners use the shared data responsibly, the amendments will put in place proper authorisation and strong safeguards, including new criminal offences. Individuals from external partners found misusing the shared data will be subject to the same level of penalties as public officers under the current Act. This includes criminal penalties for the unauthorised disclosure and improper use of information, and the unauthorised re-identification of anonymised data by the user of data. This is in addition to existing obligations and penalties under the Personal Data Protection Act 2012, which will continue to apply for external partners.
The Bill also amends the Act to clarify that the public sector may use internally the data which they are allowed to share with other public sector agencies, under the same legal basis under the existing seven purposes.
Background
The Act was introduced in 2018 to strengthen the governance of statutory boards to better deliver services. The Act provides a clear legal basis for data sharing across the public sector under the direction of the Minister, which can be made for seven specific purposes supporting public interest, i.e. (i) to uphold and promote the values of the Singapore public sector; (ii) to secure economies or efficiencies for the Singapore public sector; (iii) to improve (directly or indirectly) the efficiency or effectiveness of policies, programme management, or service planning and delivery by Singapore public sector agencies (whether by carrying out data analytics work or otherwise); (iv) to ensure business continuity; (v) to ensure accountable and prudent stewardship of Singapore public sector finances and resources; (vi) to manage risks to the financial position of the Government; and/or (vii) to support a whole-of-government approach in the discharge of the functions of Singapore public sector agencies. The Act also introduced criminal offences to hold individual public officers responsible and accountable for the proper handling of data.
The amendments were first proposed in a public consultation conducted by the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (“MDDI”) from 12 August 2025 to 2 September 2025.
Reference materials
The following materials are available on the Parliament website www.parliament.gov.sg, MDDI website www.mddi.gov.sg, and REACH website www.reach.gov.sg: