The Singapore Police used data from a mobile app to track COVID-19 infected people to solve the murder. This is reported by The Straits Times.
Earlier, local authorities assured citizens that the application is used exclusively for contact tracing of persons who have been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. However, on Tuesday, December 5, officials admitted that police could gain access to user data. The minister responsible for the development of smart technologies and innovations clarified that at the moment we are talking about a single case when personal information about a person from the application was used to investigate a murder.
The official stressed that all means must be available to the police to bring criminals to justice and ensure security. “Especially in such serious cases, when life is at stake, it is inappropriate to say that certain categories of data should be out of the reach of the police,” he said. Nevertheless, the incident caused strong outrage among citizens who massively installed the application. They fear that police access to the program's data would infringe on privacy.
The TraceTogether application is installed on a smartphone or a special key fob. Using Bluetooth, the program monitors the user's proximity to other mobile devices. This allows the authorities to quickly and efficiently track all contacts of those infected with the coronavirus. Almost 80 percent of Singaporeans have installed TraceTogether, according to government figures.
