Senator urges on the Ministry of Health to provide assurances about the security of personal data in MySejahtera.
The Health Ministry (MoH) should assure the public that their personal information in the MySejahtera app is always secure and will not be misused, the Dewan Negara was informed today. Senator Muhammad Zahid Md Arip said that such guarantees should be backed up by tangible efforts by the Ministry of Health and the government to plug any gaps that could lead to personal data leaking.
According to Zahid, the government created the MySejahtera app to help combat the spread of Covid-19, but it will be regrettable if people’s personal data is compromised in the process. There should be no replay of the handphone incident, in which despite assurances from carriers and the government that our data was safe, we were nonetheless harassed by scammers. “The Ministry of Health should learn from this,” he remarked when introducing a motion on the MySejahtera app, according to Zahid.
Following the question-and-answer session, Dewan Negara president Tan Sri Rais Yatim allowed Muhammad Zahid’s motion to be debated since it satisfied the conditions of Standing Order 17 (1) of being precise in nature, of public concern, and urgent. The fact that MySejahtera’s server is headquartered in Singapore, the personnel behind the firm operating the application, and the expense of taking over the MySejahtera management, which allegedly ran into millions of ringgit, were among the issues voiced by Muhammad Zahid.
Some questioned why the private business in charge of the application, MySJ Sdn Bhd, did not go through an open bidding process and what criteria were utilised to choose the company. Others thought it odd that important people from the prior company, KPISoft Sdn Bhd, were now working for MySJ Sdn Bhd. “It’s like putting new clothing on the same body,” he remarked, referring to the fact that the same faces are in the new company.
He asked Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and the administration to resolve these issues and misunderstandings because the Ministry of Health, as a vital ministry, should not be embroiled in a controversy. He also stated that clarifications from the MoH could prevent certain groups from manipulating the MySejahtera issue for political benefit. According to Zahid, the idea for submitting this motion arose when the president (Rais) voiced concern that the people’s data in the MySejahtera application could be abused and manipulated by third parties.
