Coronavirus: TraceTogether data used in murder case, Singapore minister says as he defends police access to contact-tracing programme
- Ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan defend police use of data from the contact-tracing programme in case of ‘serious offences’
- Police access has stirred controversy, as government has previously stressed it would be used only for contact-tracing
Police had used the information from the TraceTogether programme in just one investigation so far – a murder case, the ministers said.
The comments in parliament on Tuesday followed the disclosure by Desmond Tan, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, on Monday that police were allowed to access the data under the Criminal Procedure code.
The admission prompted controversy because the Singapore authorities, in an effort to boost public participation in the programme, had previously stressed the data would be used only for contact-tracing purposes.
Both Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan defended use of the data by police in cases of serious crimes.
“Let’s say there is a murder ... and information is available on [TraceTogether], if police chose not to seek that information, you can imagine how the victim’s family and indeed the rest of Singapore might react to that situation,” Shanmugam said.
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