Is the data in Trace Together private?

 Is the data in Trace Together private?

Minister Balakskrishnan (VB), who is in charge of the Smart Nation initiative, said a few months ago that the data collected under Trace Together (TT) app is not stored in the government servers and that kept privately in the user's mobile phone.

Minister of State of Home Affairs Desmond Tan (DT) said in Parliament that the government is empowered, under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), to access the data on the mobile phone.

This cause an uproar. The citizens said that they have been misled by the government on the privacy of the data. Some people said that they will stop using the Trace Together app.

This caused minister VB to have "sleepless nights". He realized that had "misspoke" about the privacy of the data in the TT app.

Here is my perspective about the whole issue.

I think it can be described as "making a mountain out of a molehill". It is exaggerating a small problem and making it appear to be a big problem.

Under the CPC, the police is empowered to confiscate the personal computer of the suspect. The personal data that is stored in the computer is more sensitive and richer than the data in the Trace Together app.

If there is privacy concern about police investigation, it should be targeted at the confiscation of the computer and documents that are being accessed, rather than the TT data.

The extension of the power of the police to the TT data is quite a small issue.

What can the police see when they access the TT data? They can know who are the people that were in close contact with the suspect during the past 14 days. This data excludes the physical location of the data that was captured.

The possibility of the data being useful for the police investigation was so low that it was not worth considering. Why should it cause one minister to have sleepless nights and another minister to declare that he has the power to access the data?

I find this situation to be quite ridiculous.

I am concerned that it reflects poorly on the quality of the thinking and logic of the two ministers. Is this the quality of our ministers?

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