"I take full responsibility for this mistake and I deeply regret the consternation, the anxiety that was caused by my mistake," said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who has overseen the scheme
The Singapore Parliament passed a Bill on February 2 limiting the use of data collected for coronavirus contact-tracing after the Government admitted it could be accessed by police, sparking privacy concerns.
The city-state last year rolled out a programme called TraceTogether for tracking close contacts of Covid-19 patients that works via both a phone app and dongle, but uptake was initially slow.
It rose to more than 80 per cent of residents after Government assurances the data would only be used to fight the virus and a decision to make it mandatory for accessing some public places.
But there was an outcry last month when officials admitted police could access information gathered in the scheme as part of investigations and had already done so during a murder probe.
On Tuesday, lawmakers approved legislation limiting the cases in which police can get hold of the data.
It did not cut them off entirely but will give them access only during investigations into seven categories of serious offence, including possession of firearms, terrorism and rape.