In Singapore, a pioneer of 'contact tracing', the data collected by the TraceTogether app used by the government to fight Covid-19 are now accessible to the police for their investigations.
A turnaround on the previous privacy guarantees of the system.
According to the BBC, almost 80% of residents are enrolled in the program, to encourage users to adopt the system, the Singapore authorities had promised that the data would never be used for any other purpose, except for Covid tracking. -19.
Yesterday, however, Interior Minister Desmond Tan told Parliament that the system could actually also be used "for criminal investigation purposes".
The announcement sparked controversy on social media, with several people speaking out against the government and some users saying they had deleted the app.
TraceTogether is based on bluetooth and on a centralized model, in which the anonymous data of citizens are processed by a central server, as initially the Italian app Immuni was supposed to be, which then opted for a decentralized model, i.e. with data from the user stored on his phone.
Singapore was a pioneer in adopting the contact tracing system, which was put in place as early as March.
He later also launched a tracking device, a token, which was also used to facilitate the return to school.