We need a trustworthy owner for MySejahtera

THE Malaysian Health Coalition (MHC) is concerned over recent reports on the ownership and operations of the MySejahtera app. We welcome the Health Minister’s official statement regarding the ownership of MySejahtera (issued on March 27), but we also note the recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee for the government to “take over the operations of the MySejahtera application without involving any additional costs.”

The importance of a centralised national contact tracing application in managing Covid-19 cannot be underscored, hence we urge the government to safeguard the ownership of MySejahtera.

Key issues that may arise if we do not have a trustworthy owner for MySejahtera include breach in personal data privacy, misuse of public data and decline in public trust. This will subsequently erode public trust in governance and accountability, which are key to our successful transition into an endemic state for Covid-19.

We urge the government to rebuild public trust in MySejahtera through regular and transparent updates on privacy and data usage policies for the app. This must include publishing legal documents that explain the data governance (such as which servers, who has access to the data, and how is the data processed).

The rakyat must know the legal structure of all the private companies involved. Technical transfers of ownership for MySejahtera should not be made through direct negotiations without the rakyat’s knowledge. The government and Health Ministry must institute measures, including possible legal recourse, to increase the public’s trust in MySejahtera.

Protecting the rakyat’s health and data privacy must go hand in hand and cannot be compromised at any cost. Public health needs trust to be successful.

MALAYSIAN HEALTH COALITION

(See full signature list at myhealthcoalition.org)