[UPDATED] Govt signed NDA with MySejahtera developer, fully owns data: Khairy

KUALA LUMPUR – Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today said that the government had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the developers of the MySejahtera contact tracing app on April 1, 2020 to secure ownership of all user data.

Khairy told the Senate that one of the main terms in the agreement was that the government would have full ownership of data and information obtained from users of the MySejahtera app. 

He assured that all information obtained by the government is protected, and that it only uses data collected for the sake of managing the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that the app’s server is based in AIMS Data Centre here and not overseas. 

He also noted that all data on the app is automatically deleted from its server after 90 days and cannot be recovered after the hard delete has been executed.

Khairy downplayed concerns about foreign interests in MySejahtera developers KPISoft Malaysia Sdn Bhd – which was renamed Entomo Malaysia in May 2020 – saying that the majority shareholders in the company are Malaysians.

Entomo Malaysia is listed as wholly owned by Entomo Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based company which operates in the United States, UAE, Austria, India and Malaysia, and is owned by two firms – Singaporean venture capital outfit Vickers Venture Partners and Japanese telco NTT Docomo Ventures Incorporated.

Khairy explained that the government had selected KPISoft from a pool of 11 companies, whose proposals were evaluated by the Covid-19 Digital Enablement Taskforce.

“All parties in the taskforce had agreed that the application suggested by KPISoft had the best offerings, mainly because their proposal was of a ready application that could go live within two weeks,” he said, adding that their offer to manage the app for free for one year helped clinch the deal.

Khairy said that the cabinet decided in November 2021 to the transfer of ownership of MySejahtera from the National Security Council to the Health Ministry, with the brand, modules and source code now owned by the ministry.

He said he is ready to give his full cooperation to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, which said yesterday that it will conduct an inquiry into MySejahtera.

MySejahtera has been embroiled in controversy following revelations in the PAC’s report released in Parliament last week, with questions raised over the true ownership status of the platform and data security of over 38 million users. – The Vibes, March 31, 2022