The new Social Distancing feature in the Smart Selangor Parking mobile app.
The Smart Selangor Parking (SSP) mobile app has a new feature to help motorists adapt to the movement control order (MCO).
It will remind users to practise social distancing and alert them if they are standing less than one metre away from another person.
The social distancing feature is also aimed at helping with contact tracing as it will store a history of devices the app has come into contact with.
Users can get the feature by updating their existing SSP app on their mobile phones.
“In light of Covid-19, we want to do our part and help stop the spread of the virus.
“We hope the feature can also help the Health Ministry with contact tracing, ” said Leading Innovative Technologies and Systems Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Lai Thiam Sin, whose company created and manages the app.
Motorists use the app to pay for parking via their mobile devices since the app was incepted in May 2018.
Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) was the first local council to come on board on May 1, followed by five others on July 1 last year, namely Sepang Municipal Council, Shah Alam City Council, Ampang Jaya Municipal Council, Kajang Municipal Council and Selayang Municipal Council.
Last year, four more councils joined in — Subang Jaya Municipal Council, Kuala Selangor District Council, Kuala Lumpur City Hall and Klang Municipal Council.
“This feature will work when the mobile app is turned on and if another device is detected in a range of about 0.5m to 1.5m, then users will be notified.
“The user can see a history of devices or people they had close contact with, ” said Lai.
He said the feature could be turned off if the user did not want to receive notifications on social distancing.
He assured that the information on history of devices and the
places the user visited would not be sold to any third party and would only be used to assist the government in contact tracing if required.
If someone has two phones or would like to be close to certain devices, they can mark it as an allowable phone on the app and they will not be sent any alerts.
“The notification will only pop up when a user turns on the app, not when it is turned off or running in the background because that will drain the phone battery life, ” he explained.
Lai said new features would be added to improve the app.
