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Forced to download TT & SGSecure: The startling truth hidden in the reviews of government apps By kathleen 14/01/2021 In the light of grievances being aired relating to Singapore government apps—namely the technical issues with the TraceTogether app as well as the government’s revelation that the data from the app is accessible to the police despite earlier assurances that the data will only be used for contract tracing purposes—something peculiar and somewhat disturbing was highlighted in a reddit/r/Singapore thread. Specifically, that many people have been forced to leave positive reviews on government apps in order to boost the app ratings on both the Appstore and Google Playstore. A couple of people who were full-time National Servicemen (NSFs) noted that they were forced to download the TraceTogether app or sign up for extra duty shifts, or even be charged for insubordination. This prompted several other reddit users to share about how they were forced to download the government’s anti-terrorism app, SGSecure and leave a positive review, while they were serving their national service. They, too, were faced with the same threat of signing up for extra shifts if they did not download the app. One person even said that they could be “literally charged for Disobedience of General Orders” for not downloading the app. This extends to apps, as another person said they were asked to ‘like’ Facebook pages that were associated to the Ministry of Defence and to leave positive reviews for the NS cookhouse. Sifting through the thousands of reviews of the SGSecure app on both the Apple Appstore and Google Playstore revealed two things. First, many 5-star reviews that were hyperbolic in describing the effectiveness of the SGSecure app. It is arguably one of the best displays of Singapore’s unique brand of humour on the internet. https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2021/01/14/forced-to-download-tt-sgsecure-the-startling-truth-hidden-in-the-reviews-of-government-apps/