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Singapore Government Admits COVID-19 Privacy Data Is Available To Police
Singapore officials have admitted that data from its COVID contact tracing programme can also be accessed by police, reversing earlier privacy assurances
Singapore officials have recently admitted that data from its COVID-19 contact tracing programme can also be accessed by police. According to BBC, on January 4 the parliament was told that the data could be used for the purpose of criminal investigations. However, earlier the officials had explicitly ruled out that the information would be used for anything other than the virus tracking.
Nearly 80 per cent of residents are signed up to the Trace Together Programme. The voluntary use had also increased after the government had announced that it would soon be needed to access anything from the supermarket to place of work. The programme uses a smartphone app or Bluetooth token and it also monitors who you have been in contact with.
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Singapore’s government has come under fire after revealing that data gathered by its official COVID-19 contact tracing app could be accessed by police conducting criminal investigations, contradicting earlier assurances of privacy.
When the Bluetooth-enabled TraceTogether app was launched in March of last year, the Singaporean government encouraged people to sign up by assuring them that their privacy would be safeguarded. The software’s privacy statement promised that data gathered by the app would “only be used solely for contact tracing of persons possibly exposed to COVID-19.”
Similarly explicit promises were offered by Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in June, when he told a press conference, “TraceTogether app, TraceTogether running on a device, and the data generated, is purely for contact-tracing. Period.”
SINGAPORE — Singapore’s COVID-19 contact-tracing program is facing renewed concerns over privacy after a government minister told lawmakers that data collected through the program could be used for criminal investigations, despite earlier assurances to the contrary.
The TraceTogether pro
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