This article is more than 1 year old

Singapore already planning version 2.0 contact-tracing wearable

Contract awarded for 300,000 units and another tender has been issued

The island nation announced the wearable, known as the “TraceTogether Token”, on June 9th and quickly defended the device’s privacy features on grounds that it lacks GPS features and is intended to make contact-tracing possible for those who either don’t use a smartphone or lack a suitable model. Authorities also did not rule out making the device compulsory.

However records from the Singaporean procurement portal reveal that tender GVT000EDC20300057 - Procurement of 300K Units of Trace Together Dongle v1.1 (PR200819) - was issued on May 14th – three weeks before the wearable was announced.

That deal went to local electronics manufacturer PCI Private.

But yesterday GovTech, Singapore’s digital transformation agency, announced a new tender, open to 20 companies, “for the design and manufacturing of the TraceTogether Token.”

The tender will be decided on grounds including “the proposed technical quality, security, and price of the token, as well as the manufacturing capability of the vendor company.”

The tender is not visible on Singapore’s procurement portal at the time of writing and GovTech has not revealed how many it wants made this time around. But local media say the new tender will be for an enhanced device and that security testing on the current model is ongoing. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like