WITH the MySejahtera app issue still raging, a UMNO leader urged the Government to be transparent to the public on the matter as it involved private data.
“Although the Health Ministry (MOH) has explained the matter, there are still some confusions that needs to be addressed, especially when it comes to MySJ Sdn Bhd’s appointment to the project using direct negotiation instead of an open tender system.
“The people deserve to know why it was done in such a manner and also whether the entity’s track record and capabilities.
“This is about managing private data of millions of people; which includes their health information, movements and lifestyle,” its deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said, in a Facebook post.
Recently, health portal Code Blue sent shockwaves after it revealed that in October 2020, there was licence agreement between Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd (formerly known as KPISoft Malaysia) and MySJ, which saw the former transfer MySejahtera intellectual property and grant the app’s software licence to MySJ for RM338.6 mil.
The contract was said to be a five-year, three-month deal until end-2025. The public were livid as the matter only raised suspicion that their private data indicated in MySejahtera was being held by a private entity instead of the Government.
Yesterday, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has said the Government will choose another vendor if it cannot get a fair deal with MySJ, stressing the data collected by the app is still owned by the Government.
“We have not concluded the negotiations [with MySJ]. We are still in negotiations and once the negotiations are done, we will inform what the basis of the contract… is but we have to regularise the services that they provide.
“I can tell you for the fact that the amount that we are negotiating with MySJ is much, much lower than RM300 mil… far lower,” Bernama reported him as saying.
“Direct surveillance” must end…soon
Touching on the matter, Mohamad Hasan reminded the Government that MySejahtera was developed under corporate social responsibility (CSR) project to deal with COVID-19.
With MySj coming into the picture to manage the next phase of the app, he added, it was worrying and stressed on the need to consult all stakeholders before any decision was made.
“They are talking about expanding MySejahtera’s use to include managing organ donation and other health matters. It sounds good but it doesn’t reflect the actual reason the app was developed.
“Any decision to expand its usage must include effective check and balance mechanism to ensure private data of users are not compromised in any way,” the Rantau lawmaker quipped.
With the country transitioning to endemic phase, Mohamad Hasan said that Malaysians should not be burdened with “direct surveillance” measures, which was breaching their privacy.
“We must set a time frame on when all this must end so as to ensure Malaysians can go back to their normal lives like in the pre-pandemic era.” he remarked. – March 29, 2022
Main photo credit: Astro Awani
