Govt mulls scrapping mandatory Covid-19 contact tracing

KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysians may no longer need to use the MySejahtera application to access public places as soon as next month, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today, as the government considers scrapping the contact tracing requirement.

Khairy said the ministry will first assess the situation from April 1, when the government is set to open the country’s borders to international travel and loosen its Covid-19 standard operating procedures.

This will include analysis of mobility and infection patterns, the minister said.

“We want to see with the border reopening and loosening of SOPs, the mobility and infection patterns for a few weeks,” Khairy told reporters in Putrajaya.

“If there are no significant changes (in the patterns), then we can stop (contact tracing),” he said, adding that a decision could be made within a month.

Earlier today, the Malaysian Medical Association called for an end to the use of MySejahtera for contact tracing, saying that it may have already outlived its usefulness.

On the issue of ownership of MySejahtera, Khairy reiterated that the data collected via the application is owned by the Health Ministry even if the platform is currently being run by a private firm.

The minister assured that all the data is kept in a secure government server, and that Putrajaya is still in negotiations over the ownership of the application.

“We just need to finalise things contractually and it takes time because it’s technical. But I think we can finalise it within a month,” Khairy said.

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report released last week revealed that the government is studying whether it should sign a contract of service with the company that developed the MySejahtera application to manage the software, or outright buy the company.

The report also showed that the cabinet had decided to transfer ownership of MySejahtera from the developer to a special purpose vehicle called MySJ Sdn Bhd, which was appointed through direct negotiation.

The revelation sparked a public outcry, with opposition politicians and lawyers questioning how the government can claim to own the application and the data collected if it is in the midst of negotiating subscription terms with the software’s license holder.

The government said it has compiled personal and movement data of some 38 million Malaysians, foreign residents and travellers through MySejahtera. – The Vibes, March 30, 2022