BUKIT Gasing assemblyperson Rajiv Rishyakaran has urged the Health Ministry (MOH) to consider allowing other credible and verified applications to host COVID-19 vaccine certificates.
In the same vein he said that the rakyat should also be able to carry their physical vaccine certificates as proof of vaccination instead of making MySejahtera mandatory.
“The recent revelation about the alleged sale of the rights to MySejahtera app from Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd to MySJ Sdn Bhd for RM338.6 mil has rattled Malaysian citizens and residents, many who assumed that the Government was the owner and in control of the app,” said Rajiv.
“Many are concerned about their health-related data falling into the wrong hands as well as the possibility of the Government paying an exorbitant sum to a third party for ownership of the app and related services.”
Rajiv said that the people are right to fear this as the Government is negotiating to pay MySJ for the app despite the assurances from Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin that the figure is much lower than RM300 mil.
“We have now reached a point in the pandemic situation where contact tracing (being flagged based on check-in to a specific venue) is no longer being practiced and therefore, check-in requirement will be moot very soon,” he pointed out.
“It is absolutely unnecessary to track the movement of people in accordance to their locations. However, the vaccine certificates are still required for dine-in and travel purposes.”
According to Rajiv, there is no need for vaccine certificates to be ‘hosted’ solely in the MySejahtera application.
“There is nothing stopping the Government from allowing other credible and verified applications such as Grab and Touch ‘n Go to also host the vaccine certificates within their apps,” he justified.
“This way, vaccine recipients can choose their method of choice to host the vaccine certificate and not have to rely on MySejahtera to prove their vaccination status.
“The Government will also not be beholden to MySJ in negotiating the price and terms for the application and won’t have to cough up potentially hundreds of millions of ringgit to MySJ.”
Rajiv also urged the Government to delete the existing MySejahtera check-in data, saying a mere announcement of deleting the data is not enough.
“We need at least one, if not two independent auditors to confirm that this has truly happened and no data breach has occurred.” – April 5, 2022
Main photo credit: Malay Mail
