Give assurance MySejahtera data won't be misused, lawyer tells Putrajaya

Focus

By SITI NURFATIHAH PIRDAUS

28 Mar 2022 05:04pm

Lim Wei Jiet calls on the government to acknowledge concerns that the personal data of MySejahtera users will not be used for commercial purposes without their consent.

SHAH ALAM - Muda executive committee member, Lim Wei Jiet has raised concerns about the high probability that personal data of users registered under the MySejahtera application will be used for commercialization purposes.

He said that it is impossible for a private firm not to have any intention to utilise data collected by the application in order to generate profit when it has paid some RM338.6 million in licencing fees.

According to Lim, there is a discrepancy between the current status of the application despite the clarification by the Health Ministry yesterday (March 27) where they have stressed that the MySejahtera is the property of the government.

“The fact that Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd is entitled to license the MySejahtera application software clearly indicates that it is the owner of the application and not the Malaysian government.

“This directly raises concerns if the Malaysian government can control and ensure the personal data of millions of people and businesses on MySejahtera is not accessed or used by third parties, as they are not the owners of the application,” he said on his official Facebook page.

Lim then calls on the government to acknowledge the concern of the people regarding this issue, and assure that personal data of MySejahtera users will not be used for commercial purposes without their consent.

Referring to the report by news portal CodeBlue, Lim said the proposal for a “public-private partnership” model for the MySejahtera application which was made by Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd only added more questions as the model included aspects of digital health, digital commerce and digital payments, alluding that the application could have a similar function to other e-commerce apps such as Lazada or Shopee.

“The question is will the MySejahtera database with over 38 million users be used to formulate the strategy and implement the above commercialization plan?

“Will consent be obtained by users in advance for their personal data to be used as such?

“Is all this in line with the principles of personal data protection under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010?” he asked.