Josephine Teo

Josephine Teo nee Yong Li Min 杨莉明
Party Affiliation	PAP
Current Role	• MP for Jalan Besar GRC •
Past Roles	• •
Others	• •
Background
Education	• • • •
Personal Details
Age	56
Others

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Born on 8 July 1968, Josephine Teo nee Yong Li Min is currently MP for Jalan Besar GRC since 2020.

• from 2024 - appointed Minister for Digital Development and Information
• from 2017 - Second Minister for Home Affairs
• from 2021 - Minister-in-charge of the Cyber Security Agency and Smart Nation Initiative

For a full list of positions, see PARL link.

She first contested in the GE2006 in Bishan–Toa Payoh GRC as part of a five-member PAP team, but it was an uncontested walkover. Thereafter she moved to Jalan Besar GRC in 2020 and retained her MP post.

Early Life and Education

• Dunman High School
• Raffles Junior College
• 1990 - graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a Bachelor of Arts degree
• 1991 - obtained a Bachelor of Social Sciences with honours
• 1992 - obtained a Master of Science degree in economics at the London School of Economics in under the Economic Development Board–Glaxo Scholarship Programme.

Controversies

"You need a very small space to have sex" comment

• oversees the National Population and Talent Division
• question was posed on whether young people are not getting their flats early enough to have children
  • potential chicken-and-egg problem: to qualify for the Parenthood Priority Scheme, which gives first-time married couples priority for flat application, they must be expecting or have a citizen child below 16
  • But to have a child, some say they need to have a flat first
• to which Josephine Teo replied, "You need a very small space to have sex."
• She was widely criticized as being childish, insensitive, and unrealistic

Comment that no migrant worker demanded apology

• May 2020 - the massive outbreak of COVID-19 in dormitories, from 31 in April 2020 to over 15,000 in May, before more than doubling to 33,000 in June
• Lawrence Wong helmed the National Development Ministry and co-chairs the Multi-Ministry Taskforce tackling the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
• NMP Anthea Ong asked whether tbe authorities would apologise for the large number of COVID-19 cases in the dormitories.
• Josephine Teo's answer, "I have not come across one single migrant worker himself that has demanded an apology."

• she was widely labelled as aggressive and defensive for her responses

Allegations of conflict of interest and profiteering

• May 2020- allegations surfaced about corruption and profiteering about development of the Covid-19 community care facilities (CCF) such as the one by Surbana Jurong at Singapore Expo
• Josephine Teo's husband was Chief Executive Officer of Surbana Jurong back then
• MP Desmond Choo and Yaacob Ibrahim were also Surbana Jurong board members
• then-Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo instructed her lawyers to issue formal letters of demand to the two persons who made raised the claims to remove post and apologize, namely Jolovan Wham and Donald Liew
• however, she did not ask for damages and instead requested the two to make a donation of $1,000 each to the Migrant Workers' Assistance Fund
• A separate joint statement by MOH and MND said the Government had asked Singapore investment company Temasek to help set up a CCF for those with mild or no symptoms of Covid-19 and recovering patients as they believed Temasek had the necessary resources to do so at short notice through its subsidiaries, which includes PSA International, Singapore Technologies Engineering and Sheares Healthcare.
• statement added that the Ministry of Manpower and Mrs Teo were not involved in the selection of Surbana Jurong, nor were they involved in the process of managing the project costs.

NRIC unmasking incident

• 19 Dec 2024 - at press conference, as Minister for Digital Development and Information, Josephine Teo, Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah and ACRA chief executive Chia-Tern Huey Min apologised multiple times for the anxiety caused.
• this followed massive public backlash when on 13 December, statements from ACRA and the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) justified the unmasking as part of a broader policy shift to phase out masked NRICs, which were described as creating a “false sense of security.”
• Acra had made available full NRIC numbers in its free People Search function on its new Bizfile portal launched on Dec 9, sparking public backlash. The function was eventually disabled on Dec 13.
• over 500,000 queries were made on the Bizfile portal during 9-13 December 2024, before the People Search function was disabled. This surpassed the usual traffic of 2,000-3,000 queries daily
• However, the issue only came to public attention on 12 December, after former Straits Times editor Bertha Henson highlighted it in a Facebook post. Public outcry ensued as the full NRIC could be misused to access various services, authenticate SingPass, and personal data, in contravention of PDPC guidelines released in 2019
• Subsequently, MDDI and the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) have blamed a misunderstanding of a July 2024 circular
• Repeated calls to make this circular public have gone unheeded
• A review of how the disclosure by ACRA came about and Government’s policy on the responsible use of NRIC number was led by Head of Civil Service Leo Yip, to be completed in Feb 2025
• The report was submitted to Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean on 25 February 2025 and only approved for public release by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on 27 February.
• review's conclusion was the unmasking of full NRIC numbers on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority’s (ACRA) Bizfile portal was the result of miscommunication and coordination lapses, rather than deliberate wrongdoing, but also highlighted several shortcomings on MDDI and ACRA's part
• when questioned in detail by MPs in parliament, Teo Chee Hean acknowledged that miscommunication between ACRA and MDDI was a key factor in the incident, and that officers and senior management involved will face a range of measures, including counselling, retraining, and reductions in their performance grade and performance-based payments.
• however, public have criticized this move as pushing the blame to lower ranking civil servants while the people at the top who approved the policy, namely the ministers, shake off accountability with just an apology.

Personal Life

Josephine Teo is married to Teo Eng Cheong, the former Chief Executive Officer of Surbana Jurong (starting 1 January 2016), who is now Chief Executive Officer of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City and Investment Development Co (SSTEC), and concurrently acts as Advisor on the China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City matters within the Ministry of National Development of Singapore. The couple have twin daughters and one son.

14th Parliament MP  : Ang Wei Neng • Baey Yam Keng • Cheryl Chan Wei Ling • Chan Chun Sing • Chee Hong Tat • Cheng Li Hui • Edward Chia Bing Hui • Chong Kee Hiong • Desmond Choo • Chua Kheng Wee Louis • Eric Chua • Darryl David • Christopher de Souza • Foo Mee Har • Grace Fu Hai Yien • Gan Kim Yong • Gan Siow Huang • Gan Thiam Poh • Derrick Goh • He Ting Ru • Heng Chee How • Heng Swee Keat • Shawn Huang Wei Zhong • Indranee Rajah • S Iswaran • Janil Puthucheary • Amy Khor Lean Suan • Koh Poh Koon • Kwek Hian Chuan Henry • Desmond Lee • Lee Hsien Loong • Liang Eng Hwa • Lim Biow Chuan • Jamus Jerome Lim • Sylvia Lim • Lim Wee Kiak • Low Yen Ling • Mariam Jaafar • Masagos Zulkifli Bin Masagos Mohamad • Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman • Mohd Fahmi Bin Aliman • Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap • Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim • Murali Pillai • Nadia Ahmad Samdin • Ng Eng Hen • Ng Ling Ling • Louis Ng Kok Kwang • Rachel Ong • Ong Ye Kung • Joan Pereira • Leon Perera • Denise Phua Lay Peng • Poh Li San • Pritam Singh • Raeesah Khan • Rahayu Mahzam • Saktiandi Supaat • Seah Kian Peng • K Shanmugam • Sharael Taha • Sim Ann • Sitoh Yih Pin • Hany Soh • Sun Xueling • Alvin Tan • Carrie Tan • Tan Chuan-Jin • Dennis Tan Lip Fong • Desmond Tan • Jessica Tan Soon Neo • Tan Kiat How • Tan See Leng • Tan Wu Meng • Patrick Tay Teck Guan • Teo Chee Hean • Josephine Teo • Tharman Shanmugaratnam • Tin Pei Ling • Edwin Tong Chun Fai • Vikram Nair • Vivian Balakrishnan • Wan Rizal • Don Wee • Lawrence Wong • Xie Yao Quan • Alex Yam Ziming • Yeo Wan Ling • Yip Hon Weng • Melvin Yong Yik Chye • Zaqy Mohamad • Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim NCMP  : Leong Mun Wai • Hazel Poa