KUCHING: The hashtag #StopUsingMySejahtera has been trending on social media, especially on Twitter in the past few days, following news reports claiming that a private firm has taken over the application.
Last Thursday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), during a hearing, found that the private firm was appointed by the Health Ministry through direct negotiation after the Cabinet agreed to give up control of the application on Nov 26, 2021.
Meanwhile, the opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had also demanded the government to clarify the deal and questioned how the Health Ministry and MySJ Sdn Bhd would preserve data privacy.
He said, because the application has garnered over 11 billion check-ins since December 2020, that contains details on users’ personal preferences, consumption patterns and social networks.
Thus, calls were mounting to boycott the application while some netizens questioned the need to continue using MySejahtera and place their privacy under the scrutiny of a private entity.
However, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in a statement yesterday has refuted claims that the government has sold the MySejahtera application to a private entity.
He said the government had already decided in November last year, that the MySejahtera would be the government’s property and appointed the Health Ministry as the main owner of the application for the country’s public health management.
He assured that the MySejahtera data has always been under the Health Ministry’s purview since the app was rolled out and subject to procedures set by the Health Ministry, under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988, Medical Act 1971 and international guidelines.
“The confidentiality of public data is guaranteed and the ministry will always ensure that this aspect is never compromised,” he stressed.
