Singapore to introduce cyber security bill

Singapore will create a Cyber Security Bill to give its online defense agency “greater powers to secure our critical information infrastructure”, Communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim announced.

The Cyber Security Agency will give priority to protecting energy, water, transport, health, government, Infocomm, media, security and emergency, banking, and finance sectors, he added. The agency will design a national strategy to secure this infrastructure.

“To set an example, cyber security expenditure as a share of the government’s IT budget will increase to at least 8% in the long term,” Minister Yaacob added.

The ministry will also launch a plan called Design 2025 to make Singapore a design hub.

“Through design, enterprises can be more responsive to customers’ needs and innovative in their product and service offering,” he said.

The government will help citizens learn new skills like design-thinking, storytelling, coding, and computational thinking through its lifelong learning initiative, SkillsFuture.

"To support this new way of learning, the city plans to transform its public libraries," Minister Yaacob said. Libraries will cater to different reading and learning preferences.

“We will offer differentiated collections, interactive technologies and conducive library spaces to make learning more engaging and interesting.”