Singapore admits police can access contact-tracing data

SINGAPORE: Singapore has admitted data collected for contact-tracing can be accessed by police despite earlier assurances it would only be used to fight the coronavirus, sparking privacy concerns Tuesday about the scheme. The city-state has a programme called “TraceTogether” for tracking close contacts of Covid-19 patients, that works via both a phone app and a dongle. Take-up was initially slow due to privacy worries but rose to almost 80 percent of residents after government assurances and a decision to make its use mandatory for accessing some public places like malls. However, a senior official admitted in parliament that police could “obtain any data” — including information gathered through the contact-tracing programme — in the course of a criminal investigation.

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishan said later that, to his knowledge, police had so far only accessed contact-tracing data on one occasion, during a murder probe. Human Rights Watch accused the government, which is regularly criticised for curtailing civil liberties, of “undermining the right to privacy”. The admission “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, told AFP.