Coronavirus: Singapore’s contact-tracing app can be used by police but only for serious offences
- It was last week revealed that police can obtain TraceTogether data for criminal investigations under the Criminal Procedure Code
- The government had earlier given assurances that the data would be used solely for contact-tracing purposes to combat Covid-19
In a press release, the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) under the Prime Minister’s Office noted that Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, minister in charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, and K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and for Law, had on Tuesday assured Parliament and the public that the use of TraceTogether data in criminal investigations would be restricted to serious offences.
The office said that the government will introduce legislation to “formalise these assurances” in the next Parliament sitting in February on a Certificate of Urgency. This means that the legislation could be debated and fast-tracked within a single parliamentary session.
“The legislation will specify that personal data collected through digital contact-tracing solutions, which comprise the TraceTogether programme and the SafeEntry programme, can only be used for the specific purpose of contact tracing, except where there is a clear and pressing need to use that data for criminal investigation of serious offences,” SNDGO said.
The legislation, the office added, will set out seven categories of serious offences for which the personal data collected for Covid-19 contact tracing can be used for police investigations, inquiries, or court proceedings.
The categories of serious offences are: