KUALA LUMPUR – The government should not allow contact tracing application MySejahtera to be sold to a private entity to ensure the confidentiality of information mined from millions of users, said opposition lawmaker Charles Santiago.
The Klang MP warned of the risks if such information about people’s movements, habits, and preferences were to be compromised once the application is owned by a third party.
“Imagine if this data is compromised: could this amount to a national security threat?
“Or the personal identifiable information used in political campaigns during the next polls, for example?”
Santiago said members of the public through social media vented their frustrations at the notion of MySejahtera being sold off, suggesting that initial fears of data mismanagement that surfaced during the application’s introduction could well have been justified.
“People have been concerned about using the MySejahtera application from the start because they know it could be used to mine information. And they haven’t been all that wrong, have they?
“It’s all been shrouded in secrecy from the beginning: the relationship between the application developer and the government is unclear,” he said in a statement today.
His comments come on the heels of PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s questioning of the cabinet’s rationale to allow the procurement of MySejahtera by private company MySJ Sdn Bhd from its original vendors KPISoft Malaysia Sdn Bhd via a direct negotiation.
Following findings of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Anwar had questioned the government’s need to appoint MySJ to procure the application from KPISoft, now known as Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd, who initially built the programme as a corporate social responsibility initiative.
The opposition leader also questioned the relationships between MySJ directors and those in the ruling coalition, going on to allege that the deal appeared to resemble a pattern of rewarding companies and individuals that have political and business connections to the ruling government.
Santiago today questioned the decision to appoint MySJ through direct negotiation instead of a transparent open tender negotiation.
“And to boot, the ownership of the company that developed the application and that which is going to buy it seems to overlap as well, pointing to corruption and cronyism.”
He said the government should begin practising transparency in such matters and stop making decisions unilaterally.
“And in this case, it needs the buy-in of the people who have been using the MySejahtera application. Would it get the approval? The answer is a resounding ‘no!’” – The Vibes, March 27, 2022
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