When the Benefits System Goes Wrong
A benefits payment system in another country overpaid, underpaid and then demanded money back. Wei Ling and a public sector auditor trace what failed, from data matching to the appeal process.
What a National Digital Identity Is Allowed to Do
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Show notes
What a National Digital Identity Is Allowed to Do
A digital identity sounds like one thing and is actually a set of rules. Wei Ling walks through what it proves, what it must not do, and how those limits are written into the design, with a former colleague and a privacy auditor.
- Authentication versus identification, and why the difference matters
- The data an agency can request and the list it cannot
- Designing a consent screen that people actually read
- What a privacy audit checks, and the finding that changed a product
- The paper route: who still needs it and how it is kept open
Send your questions about any government service and Wei Ling will find the person who built it.
Transcript
Hello, welcome to The Digital Counter. I am Wei Ling Tan, and for eight years I built government services in Singapore, the kind you use at midnight on your phone instead of in a queue at nine. Today we start with the thing underneath all of them, a national digital identity. Most people think of it as a login. Inside government it is a set of rules about what can be proven, what can be shared, and what must never be asked for. I am joined by a former colleague who worked on the consent screens and a privacy auditor who reviewed them, and we will go through what an agency may request, what it cannot, and the audit finding that forced a redesign. We will also talk about who still needs paper. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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