Poh Li San on Digital Infrastructure Bill

Singapore must prioritise critical functions but the Digital Infrastructure Bill does not categorically prescribe what functions can be allowed to tap into data centres housed in the country, said MP Poh Li San. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday (Oct 6), she stressed the need to consider including this prioritisation criteria at the start in terms of usage allocation. Otherwise, there could be a possibility of reaching a point where critical functions may be crowded out of data centre access, because less critical but more lucrative functions can pay better. “We cannot and must not rely on the price mechanism to protect national security,” she said.