The MySejahtera app has been made compulsory for everyone to use in order to enter buildings, update your health, be notified on vaccine appointments and keep track of your daily contacts since the Covid-19 pandemic hit us.
Lately, the app has caused a lot of confusions and came under fire for glitches. Over the weekend, MySejahtera is making headlines again after it was reported that the app is being sold to a private company.
The news that a private company has taken over the app came about after a hearing last Thursday (24th March) where The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) discovered that the Ministry of Health (MOH) chose My SJ Sdn Bhd through direct negotiation after the Cabinet decided to relinquish management of the application on 26th November 2021.
This raised concerns of data privacy of each user of MySejahtera in Malaysia. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim even demanded the government clarify the deal and questioned how MOH and MySJ would preserve data privacy.
Since the news broke out, the hashtag #StopUsingMySejahtera has been trending on Twitter where netizens are encouraging each other to boycott the application. Many are saying that everyone should delete or uninstall the app for the safety of their private data while others are saying there’s no use.
On Sunday (27th March), the Ministry of Health released an official statement on their Facebook page regarding the news. According to the Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, the ministry has never sold the app to any private entity to manage public health services.
Khairy responded to Anwar Ibrahim’s concern regarding the ownership status of the MySejahtera app. “Since it was launched, the usage of MySejahtera has been through the software as a service (SaaS) approach to reduce the turnaround time required to develop a new software, following the need for a specialised system to manage the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
The Health Minister stated that the data in the MySejahtera app is under the ministry’s supervision and would not be shared with any government agencies or private companies. The public is encouraged to continue using the MySejahtera app without reservation because the privacy of public data is ensured.
