PETALING JAYA: The public need not be concerned about privacy issues when using MySJ Trace on the MySejahtera app.
The MySJ team at the Health Ministry will not have access to MySJ Trace information without approval from Covid positive individuals, said University Malaya Medical Centre head of Public Health Department Dr Victor Hoe.
Individuals concerned need to agree to participate and upload the MySJ Trace information to be accessed by the MySJ team.
He said the MySJ Trace feature serves many purposes, such as tracking the movement of others in the vicinity of the user and identifying Covid-positive individuals and close contacts using an algorithm to provide the duration and distance of contact.
“Having this information would make it easy for the Health Ministry to track and trace all close contacts. This will enable those who are in close contact to be quarantined and take necessary action to prevent further transmission.
“The information in MySJ Trace is only accessible by the MySJ team at the ministry and authorised staff at the district health office. They will only use the information to do contact tracing.
“It is important that everyone activates the MySJ Trace feature, as this would allow tracking and tracing of all close contacts.”
MySJ Trace works through Bluetooth technology. The system is able to capture the interaction time and the distance of the people in the interaction. The MySJ team would be able to use the information to determine whether the individuals concerned are close contacts.
Hoe said apart from using MySJ Trace, all Covid-positive individuals who update the MySejahtera app would be prompted to manually provide a list of close contacts.
The two methods, manual update and update through MySJ Trace, will provide a more complete picture of the close contacts. This will also reduce the amount of work for the healthcare worker at the district level when doing contact tracing.
Universiti Malaya professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, Dr Sanjay Rampal, said the scanning of location via QR codes was a short-term solution.
“MySJ Trace is a good initiative to digitalise contact tracing. However, to increase its uptake, the public may require greater assurance on the transparency on data use and ownership and that the data will only be used for contact tracing purposes.
“One good incentive is to allow those using MySJ Trace to forego the scanning of QR codes, thus increasing the buy-in of such an initiative.
“With decreased risk of severe disease in the Omicron wave, it may be a good time to reassess whether contact tracing is still a priority for the pandemic management.”
