Access to Government eGazette Limited to Paid Subscription and Five-day Archive
Ministry of Digital Development and InformationSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the considerations behind the five-day free access limit and paid subscription requirements for the Government eGazette archive. Mr Leon Perera inquired about the rationale for this policy, which Minister S Iswaran explained was a cost-recovery arrangement with Toppan Leefung Pte Ltd established in 1998. Minister S Iswaran noted that while legislation is already free on the Singapore Statutes Online website, government notices should be more accessible in the digital age. He announced that a review had been conducted and, by the end of January 2020, all e-Gazette publications, including archives, would be made available to the public free of charge.
Transcript
76 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Communications and Information what are the considerations behind the current arrangement of making the Government eGazette only available for the past five days and requiring a paid subscription to access the archive online.
Mr S Iswaran: Previously, documents that were electronically published in the Government Gazette on the e-Gazette website were available for free access by members of the public for five days. This was an agreement between the Government and Toppan Leefung Pte Ltd (Toppan), formerly known as the Singapore National Printers Pte Ltd, that had been in place since September 1998 when the e-Gazette website was implemented. Toppan was granted a non-exclusive licence to publish documents in the Government Gazette in electronic form. As Toppan had invested in procuring, configuring, maintaining and operating the system which was used for the publication of Government Gazettes on the e-Gazette website, it was allowed to recover costs by imposing subscription fees for access to the e-Gazette archives.
The documents on the e-Gazette website are mostly legislation. Current and earlier versions of all legislation are also available on the Singapore Statutes Online website hosted by the Attorney-General's Chambers. This website provides 24/7 free public access.
In this digital age when citizens get most of their information online, Government notices should be made more easily accessible to the public. We have reviewed our arrangements with Toppan. By the end of January 2020, all publications on the e-Gazette website will be made available to the public without charge, including publications that have been published for more than five days.