Registering the birth of a child has gone paperless, with the launch of a new app that also allows parents to apply for the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Baby Bonus scheme.
Called Moments of Life (Families), or MOL (Families), the app is the first to showcase the national effort to remove the hassle of going to different government agencies to complete forms and providing the same information repeatedly.
The app is available on Apple iTunes and Google Play stores.
More hospitals will be included in subsequent versions of the app, which aims to have more than 10,000 Singaporean users for a start.
“We are committed to enhancing the app progressively (via) suggestions and feedback from users,” said Mr Chris Lim, covering director at the MOL (Families) Programme Office.
Birth registration has hitherto been paper-based and done at hospitals or the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority building.
MOL (Families) is among a new wave of government apps that are designed with extensive user feedback as part of the Government’s plans to make Singapore a Smart Nation. Another is Parking.sg, which replaces coupon parking.
With MOL (Families), personal information required in the form is taken automatically from MyInfo, a government-backed digital vault of citizens’ personal data.
MOL (Families) also allows new parents to search for and put their child on the waiting list of pre-schools that are within a 1km radius of their homes.
Yet another plus is that pa-rents can view their child’s medical appointments and immunisation records.
Freelance content creator Ateeqah Mazlan, 29, said the app is a one-stop shop for new parents. She finds the pre-school feature the most helpful.
“It has all the detailed information I need – from the schools’ exact location and whether they have a vacancy, to the fees after government subsidy,” said Madam Ateeqah, whose son is turning two next year and ready for pre-school.
The Parking.sg app, which allows motorists to pay for per-minute parking remotely instead of using paper coupons, was launched in October last year.
It has since garnered 540,000 downloads, 350,000 vehicle registrations and processed more than six million parking sessions.