Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed in his response to a student’s question on the government’s collection of individual’s data, that he is able to track a person anywhere in Singapore through the telecommunication companies like Singtel, Starhub and M1:
“Telcos in Singapore know where the concentrations of people are and where they are going. Can we make use of that without tracing this person, with this name … I saw him at this place with this other person …?”
The dictator PM told the students to trust his government to be “ethical” when using the data and that he knows “what he want to do”:
“I think we know what we want to do. How to do it in a way which people find okay, and in a way which is safe … I think we have to feel our way forward… We want to make full use of the information we have in order to improve people’s lives, improve the way our society works, to make it a safer environment for everybody. At the same time, you do not want to do it in a way which is overbearing, intrusive, which is unethical.”
Lee Hsien Loong also revealed that he has been setting up CCTVs in every corner of Singapore to know if there has been a protest in Singapore:
“The Government has placed CCTVs in many public places like void decks, lift lobbies and HDB blocks. We need to know what’s happening in public places, in case there’s a riot or an emergency, we can respond straightaway.”