I might be out of date, and there is probably one already in place, but requires a process of application for specific information.
There is a joke about 'Thinking Outside The Box' as 'You just want to leave the meeting room and chill because no one has been able to offer any constructive ideas.'
But jokes aside, my occasional boycott of mainstream papers like NST and The Star means I missed out on obituaries of some relatives or friends. For English educated Chinese, The Star is most popular for such advertisements, and they have no idea what were published in the Chinese papers.
It just occurred to me that it would be very useful to have online access to NRD's database on deaths registered. I can still remember when years ago, a brother working in a bank used to read the obituaries in the papers to take note of customers who had passed away, so that their accounts were frozen until later when they were shown Grants of Probate or Letters of Administration. I am sure by now, banks have a better way of monitoring such cases. But wouldn't it be nice to have easy access to an authorized database, just like now, when we can easily access Election Commission's to check our voter registration status and details? An accurate database maintained by NRD is also useful to Election Commission for the purpose of weeding out phantom voters. But the fact that automatic registration of voters remains a wish, seems to suggest an ulterior motive not to go for accuracy and transparency. We have the technology and the means, but not the political will.
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