'My Family Photos Were Gone': Residents Speak Out on Duplicate Image Replacement Errors in Singapore's MyLegacy and HDB Portals

Residents using Singapore's government digital services have started raising alarms about a problem that sounds minor but carries real consequences: automated systems designed to eliminate duplicate images are deleting or replacing files that users deliberately uploaded, including photographs attached to HDB flat applications, medical power-of-attorney forms on the MyLegacy portal, and supporting documents lodged with the Central Provident Fund Board.

The complaints, clustering over the past six weeks, point to a specific failure mode in how deduplication algorithms interact with scanned documents. When two uploaded files share identical pixel-hash signatures — something that happens routinely when residents scan the same NRIC or the same photograph of a deceased relative for multiple form submissions — some back-end systems have been flagging one copy as redundant and substituting a system placeholder or an entirely different file drawn from the same hash pool.

What Residents Are Saying

In Tampines, several residents using the HDB e-Services portal to submit resale flat applications reported in June 2026 that photographs of the flat interior they had uploaded were replaced by images from what appeared to be a different unit entirely. One resident told The Daily Singapore he only discovered the swap when a counter officer at the HDB Hub on Toa Payoh Lorong 6 flagged the mismatch during a physical review appointment. He had submitted his documents digitally on 9 May and the appointment was not scheduled until 11 June — more than a month during which the wrong images sat attached to his file.

A caregiver in Ang Mo Kio described a similar experience through the MyLegacy platform, administered by the Agency for Integrated Care under the Ministry of Health. She had uploaded a scan of her mother's photograph twice — once for an Advance Care Plan and once for a Lasting Power of Attorney application — and received a system notification that a duplicate had been detected and consolidated. The photograph that remained was correct. But a supporting medical summary she had attached at the same time, which happened to be a standard one-page template used by many Tan Tock Seng Hospital patients, was replaced with a blank document bearing only a header. The LPA submission consequently failed its initial verification check.

These are not isolated anecdotes. On the HardwareZone forums and the r/singapore subreddit, threads from May and June 2026 document at least 30 distinct cases across different platforms, including SkillsFuture Singapore's course-registration portal and the SingPass Files personal document vault, which launched its expanded storage feature in January 2026.

Why This Matters Now

Singapore's Smart Nation push has moved aggressively toward paperless submissions. As of March 2026, the GovTech agency's annual report noted that more than 1,700 government digital services were accessible through the Singpass app, a figure that represents years of consolidation work. Greater integration means greater efficiency — but it also means a single algorithm flaw can propagate across multiple agencies simultaneously.

Deduplication is standard engineering practice and generally safe for data-centre storage management. The problem arises when the same logic is applied to user-facing document vaults without accounting for the legitimate reason a resident might upload the same image more than once. A photograph of an elderly parent may appear in an Advance Care Plan, an LPA, a hospital pre-admission form, and an HDB household declaration all in the same month, particularly during a hospitalisation or flat-transfer event.

GovTech did not respond to a request for comment before publication deadline. The Agency for Integrated Care directed enquiries to a general service hotline at 1800-650-6060.

For residents currently navigating government digital submissions, the most practical safeguard is to maintain a local copy of every file before uploading and to request a physical confirmation — either through a PDF acknowledgement download or a counter appointment at the relevant agency — within seven days of any submission. Anyone who suspects a file has been incorrectly replaced should file a report through the Singpass app's in-built feedback function and follow up with the specific agency's service centre directly, whether that is the HDB Hub at Toa Payoh or the AIC's office at Maxwell Road.