Govt staff dating pilot: GovTech says scheme will not match those from same agency

Shermaine Ang
The Straits Times
Oct 2, 2026

Public officers joining Government Technology Agency’s (GovTech) new dating pilot will not be matched with colleagues from the same government agency, the agency has said.

GovTech added that FirstDate is limited to public officers aged 21 to 35 because its team expected them to be “most likely to be actively dating and interested in trying the service”.

Keeping the pilot to a defined age range will also allow the team to test the product with a more focused group of users, it told The Straits Times in a reply on Oct 1 evening.

Originating from GovTech Singapore’s annual hackathon, the Singpass-verified FirstDate is a pilot being tested with unmarried public officers. It was not commissioned by another government agency, GovTech said.

It sent out e-mails to public officers on the initiative on Sept 29. Sign-ups close on Oct 5, with the matching process to begin after that.

“No decision has been made on whether to launch or expand FirstDate beyond the pilot stage,” GovTech said.

GovTech’s 2026 hackathon, which ran from April 13 to May 25, featured 270 projects across areas such as cybersecurity and healthcare.

The agency said the question the FirstDate team had was: “Does having more potential matches necessarily make it easier to find a suitable match?”

It added: “The team was interested in some of the challenges people face when meeting someone new, and wondered if a different approach could help.

“They wanted to test whether placing greater emphasis on shared values and preferences, with fewer matches at a time, could encourage users to give each introduction more consideration.”

FirstDate uses questionnaire responses and the Gale-Shapley Stable Marriage algorithm to pair participants, with users receiving one match at a time.

Developed by two mathematicians in 1962, the algorithm is designed to produce stable matches between two groups based on their preferences. It has been applied to match doctors to hospital residencies and students to public schools.

Separately, in 2019, NUS undergraduates came up with the Aphrodite Project, which also uses the same algorithm and a questionnaire to match students.

This platform, which has since been made available for free to students and alumni from over 10 universities worldwide, says on its website that it has matched more than 107,000 people to date. About two in five met their assigned match in person, and 14 engagements and marriages have been recorded so far.

A 30-year-old teacher, who declined to be named, signed up for FirstDate as he was curious.

He had earlier tried out Aphrodite Project, but did not end up meeting the person he was matched to as he already knew her from his student hostel.

He said the FirstDate questionnaire, which covers travel styles, whether a person wants children and what they bring to the table, does “give a sense of what the person is like”.

But he felt one close-ended question about dealbreakers had too few options: religion, smoking and dietary preferences.

“I felt a bit restricted for this question because it’s not very nuanced. I don’t mind dating someone from another religion, but I wouldn’t want to convert,” he said, adding that he prefers that the scheme be open to those outside of public service for more diversity.

Kenneth Tan, an Assistant Professor of psychology from Singapore Management University, said that since FirstDate is a “government initiative”, there is no profit motive, making it more trustworthy.

Using the Gale-Shapley algorithm is a useful starting point because it takes mutual preferences into account, he added.

Associate Professor of psychology Jean Liu from the Singapore Institute of Technology said the algorithm’s single round of matching differs from most dating apps’ strategy. Most apps show profiles one after another, refining what they show based on swipes to learn what users like.

But experts said relationship research suggests that ‘spark’ and compatibility are hard to predict before people meet.

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Said Liu: “We’re not very good at predicting that spark from a person’s characteristics.”

She noted that relationship science supports FirstDate’s strategy of moving to an offline date quickly, since many aspects of compatibility are only discovered when people meet.

Tan noted that the algorithm addresses how people are allocated to one another, rather than whether two people will ultimately be compatible.

“The most a platform like this can realistically do is screen out obvious mismatches and make it easier for plausible people to meet,” he said.

Without knowing exactly how FirstDate’s questions are used to generate participants’ preference rankings, it was difficult to assess how effective the matching would be, he said.

Tan was also hopeful about the platform offering one match at a time, in contrast to unlimited potential partners. People tend to reject potential matches when there is choice overload.

Tan said another potential issue is what happens when many participants prefer the same person who possesses many highly desired traits.

The Gale-Shapley algorithm matches a highly sought-after person with their top preference, while moving others who ranked that person highly to their next choices, he noted.

While the result is mathematically stable, people may be matched with someone below their top preferences, he said.

He said having an age limit for the pilot is a good start. “It can make recruitment, support and feedback more manageable while the team tests the service.”

But if there are too few sign-ups, Liu said the app may not expand a user’s options beyond what they already have in everyday life.

She noted that dating app Hinge has also used a Gale-Shapley-based approach for its daily “Most Compatible” recommendation.

Tan said using Singpass verification could increase confidence that participants are using their real identities, though a verified identity also does not establish someone’s intentions or guarantee respectful behaviour.

Both experts said users must be assured that their data will not be shared with employers or other parties.

FirstDate’s website states that only a participant’s match can see their profile, and contact details are shared only if both parties agree to connect. Questionnaire responses are handled according to government data security standards, and users can deactivate their accounts and request for their information to be removed.

Tan said a potential problem is if the system assumes that someone wants a partner who is similar to them.

But an introverted person, for example, might prefer someone more outgoing, he said.

Attraction also emerges through interactions between two people and cannot simply be reduced to matching characteristics on paper, he added.

Any compatibility score therefore should not be interpreted as the probability that a relationship will succeed.

“The strongest use of this approach is to facilitate promising introductions while giving people room to discover compatibility through conversation and shared experience,” he said.

“The pilot should assess whether people feel comfortable, meet, enjoy the interaction and mutually want another date.”

Liu said: “As a government app, FirstDate is well-poised to collect and share data on whether the algorithm works and what implementation challenges there might be.

“Most app developers keep such information proprietary, so FirstDate’s results could be informative for the field.”

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