LETTER | Is our privacy compromised by using MySejahtera?

LETTER | I received a video from a friend regarding how our mobile data – contacts and a host of other information could be accessed or shared by a French NGO. “Fat Bidin Knows Everything” highlights all these details in YouTube and he even mentioned that no answer was forthcoming when this very issue was raised in the Parliament recently by the MP of Simpang Rengam Maszlee Malik.

Why was there no explanation given when raised in Parliament? I won’t be surprised that the minister in charge is not even aware of this. Now that the problem has been raised and brought to public knowledge, has the Ministry of Health (MOH) rectified the weakness?

MySejahtera was introduced after the pandemic started and all of us were encouraged to download the Apps in our handphone as it was aimed solely at contact-tracing should a location frequented by a user is reported to have been frequented by a person with Covid-19 symptoms.

Many were rather sceptical as they had qualms as to the actual objective of its use. We were assured over and over again by the DG of MOH that nobody else would have access to MySejahtera and its users. This repeated assurances and our responsible nature to cooperate with the MOH’s initiative to curb the pandemic won the day.

I believe most of us who decided to conform to the MOH’s advice to download and use MySejahtera did it mainly out of ensuring personal safety after being repeatedly assured that our personal information will only be privy to the MOH.

Now that it has been ascertained that one or more parties have been able to siphon information from our use of MySejahtera, the MOH owes us an explanation. The MOH has a moral, social and obligatory responsibility to fulfil its promise of ensuring the abuse of personal information.

Obviously, the MySejahtera Apps has not been securely fire-walled against intrusion by unwelcome parties. As such, the availability of our personal information can be viewed as an intrusion of our privacy. This serious trust deficit of the MOH has serious implications as it sets an unwarranted precedence to future similar initiatives by the government.

Your creditability has been dented. We would like the MOH to explain this debacle and what steps it has taken to rectify this inadequacy. Now that damage has been done, the MOH owe us this responsibility. Admit your inadequacy, explain how it had happened and what steps have you taken to rectify the weakness and lastly, an apology to all Malaysians.

While we salute you and all health personnel involved for all the hard work and sacrifices made in fighting this deadly virus, this does not absolve you from being careless in introducing an unsafe App for public use.

We conform to your advice to use MySejahtera for our own personal safety, for your ease of contact-tracing and curbing the ease of spreading of the virus – all in good faith, but only to find out that your assurance on the security of our personal information had been compromised. This is grossly unfair and unjustified. Your creditability is now questionable as we have been shortchanged.

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