On 4 July 2023, 35-year-old Singaporean male, Muhammad Taufiq Hidayat bin Kamsin, was sentenced to a fine of $3,700 in default ten days imprisonment, for failing to report a change of residential address, an offence under the National Registration Act.

2.          On 1 April 2022, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) alerted the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) that Taufiq had failed to report the change of his residential address. Auxiliary police officers engaged by URA visited Taufiq’s registered place of residence to execute an outstanding warrant of arrest but were informed by the homeowner that Taufiq was no longer residing in the unit. The homeowner also informed the officers that she did not allow Taufiq to use her address as his registered place of residence. ICA tried to contact Taufiq but he remained uncontactable. At that time, Taufiq also had outstanding Police Gazettes issued by various law enforcement agencies, which included warrants of arrest.

3.          In March 2023, Taufiq surrendered himself at the Traffic Police (TP) Headquarters to settle his outstanding matters with the agency. ICA subsequently followed up with him to investigate his failure to report change of address.

4.          Investigations by ICA revealed that Taufiq had moved out of his previous residence in Canberra in December 2021. However, Taufiq did not report the change in his place of residence within 28 days to ICA, as he had outstanding matters with several law enforcement agencies then and wanted to avoid the authorities, including TP and ICA.

5.          Under the National Registration Act, all identity card (IC) holders who change his/her place of residence must report the change to ICA within 28 days. ICA takes a firm stance against any person who fails to comply with the National Registration Act and its Regulations. ICA would like to remind all Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents that it is their responsibility to update their residential addresses with ICA. The penalty for failing to report a change of residential address is a fine of up to S$5,000 or imprisonment of up to five years, or both.

6.          Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents who need to report a change of residential address can do so online via ICA’s change of address e-Service (https://go.gov.sg/ic-address). The updated addresses will facilitate their transactions with government agencies. Please refer to the Annex below on the steps to report a change of address.

IMMIGRATION & CHECKPOINTS AUTHORITY
4 JULY 2023

Annex – How to report a change of residential address via ICA’s e-Service