Singapore's contact tracing app data accessible by police: Government

After repeated assurances of selective data access, the Singapore government has admitted that the data collected for contact tracing can be accessed by their local department, causing concern for privacy.

The city started a programme called "TraceTogether" which was to be used to track close contacts for the COVID-19 patients in the city. The platform was launched to ease the process for everyone and allowed people to access it through a mobile phone app or a dongle.

Initially, the app did not gain much popularity as people were sceptical about their personal information being shared with the government and/or the police department. However, after repeated assurances by the government, the take-up of the app rose to almost 8- per cent. The app was also made compulsory in public places such as malls.

However, now, after months, a senior government official has admitted that the local police can "obtain any data" if a criminal investigation demands data sharing. The data shared will include everything which is gathered through this contact-tracing programme.

When the news broke out, the city state's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishan admitted that the data has been accessed only once till now by the local police during a murder probe.

This admission has sparked concerns from locals and various human rights group who claim this is a breach of privacy in the disguise of security and assistance. It "exposes how the government has been covertly exploiting the pandemic to deepen its surveillance and control over the population," Phil Robertson, the group's Asia deputy director said.

Balakrishan took this admission as a way of assuring locals that their elected has been transparent with them. "We want to be completely above board and transparent," he said in the Parliament on tuesday.