MCI's response on PQ on declassification of Government documents

Parliament Sitting on 4 September 2019

QUESTION FOR ORAL ANSWER

*29. Mr Leon Perera: To ask the Minister for Communications and Information (a) what proportion of Government documents that are more than 25 years old and hence are part of the public archives are contained in the publicly accessible NAS Archives Online; and (b) what proportion of Government documents declassified each year for the past five years have become part of the publicly accessible NAS Archives Online.

Answer:

Currently, the National Archives of Singapore or NAS has about 2 million government records in its custody that are more than 25 years old, and are deemed as public archives. Not all Government records can be released for open access, especially those that relate to our national defence, foreign relations and internal security, as well as documents which may be bound by confidentiality obligations or personal privacy reasons. At present, the metadata of 160,000 records are publicly accessible on the NAS Archives Online portal. This number will grow as we work with Government agencies to progressively declassify Government records. All declassified records are publicly searchable on the Online portal.