Written Reply by Minister for Transport Ong Ye Kung to Parliamentary Question on Protection of Data Collected for Next-Generation ERP System

Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Transport 

a.     what data fields will be collected by the new ERP system; 

b.     where will the data be stored; 

c.     how will the data will be anonymised and at which point in the data collection process will it be anonymised; 

d.     who will have access to both the non-anonymised and anonymised data; 

e.     what protocols are put in place to ensure that the data will not be mishandled and will remain securely held; and 

f.     under what circumstances can the data be accessed by other parties.

Reply by Minister for Transport Ong Ye Kung:

1.     Like many applications and payment systems we use today, the next-generation Electronic Road Pricing (nexgen ERP) system will collect transaction data such as whether the vehicle is on ERP-priced roads, the amount charged and whether the transaction is successfully completed. The system will also collect road traffic data such as vehicle speeds.

2.     Nexgen ERP was designed with strict data security safeguards. This was a key consideration when LTA, in consultation with other agencies, decided on using an on-board unit (OBU) to process the transactions, as opposed to an open system using our smartphones. There are also safeguards in place governing the storage, usage and sharing of data, in line with Government-wide standards.

3.     For road traffic data, once it is transferred from the OBU to LTA’s backend system, the data will be automatically anonymised. The data will be aggregated for traffic management and transport planning purposes. As an existing practice, such data can also be shared with third-party developers and researchers to develop traffic management solutions. For example, LTA publishes aggregated land transport datasets on the LTA DataMall website.

4.     As for vehicle-specific data, LTA will only use it for payments, charges and enforcement. Summons related to such non-payments will largely be auto-generated.

5.     Like all Government agencies, personnel who can access nexgen ERP data will be tightly controlled and restricted to a need-to-know basis, and data access will be logged and regularly reviewed.

6.     LTA also adheres to Government-wide standards on data sharing with other Government agencies. For example, sharing of data to support policy and planning purposes will only be done on an anonymised or aggregated basis, in accordance with the Public Service (Governance) Act