TRANSPARENCY International Malaysia (TI-M) has expressed its concern over the lack of transparency in the ownership and control of the MySejahtera application.
The anti-graft watchdog said that the rakyat has taken the Cabinet to task over grave concerns in the transfer or purported sale of the app to the company MySJ Sdn Bhd where two similar individuals are directors of the current company administering the application, KPI Soft Sdn Bhd – both reported as being politically connected.
“As the costs of operating and maintaining the MySejahtera application involves public funds, there should be a proper process on how this ‘privatisation’ of the app is being handled as it will involve taxpayers’ money,” it said in a statement.
“Too many questions have arisen from the transfer of ownership of the national health application, specifically why it isn’t directly owned, controlled and regulated by the Government.
“On another front, the statements made by Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin as reported by the media provide little information on the purpose of the transfer or mechanisms that will be put in place to prevent the sale, use or abuse of users’ personal data.”
TI-M further noted that there are grave concerns about the protection of personal data and privacy as prescribed by the Personal Data and Privacy Act (PDPA) 2010.
“The Health Ministry must provide further details to the public how it is going to exercise the security principle in section 9 of the PDPA,” said TI-M president Muhammad Mohan.
“The Government has a responsibility to treat personal data with the utmost secrecy and treat public contracts worth millions of taxpayer money with the utmost transparency; not vice versa.
“We need to prevent the leak of information and public funds equally and to ensure that such an application – which wields unprecedented power – does not fall into the wrong hands before we end up with another scandal or a national embarrassment.” – March 30, 2022
