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Concerns over privacy as COVID-19 tracing app repurposed
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A woman scans a QR code with the PeduliLindungi application. (Kontan/Fransiskus Simbolon)
T
he Health Ministry relaunched its COVID-19 testing and tracing app PeduliLindungi on Wednesday, renaming it SatuSehat (one health) and promising a more generalized health platform, but with the government's history of data breaches, experts doubt its capacity to protect user data.
Through SatuSehat, users can access the COVID-19 vaccination history and testing results that were previously available on PeduliLindungi, as well as data on available hospital beds and laboratories that could previously only be accessed through another government app.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said SatuSehat would be gradually developed into a "health data bank" for all citizens, where users could access their medical histories, lab results, MRI and CT scan images and immunization records. Users would also be able to book doctor’s appointments through the app and connect it to their smart watches.
"We are currently in the process of integrating data from all health facilities, community health centers [Puskesmas], labs and pharmacies across the country. We aim to finish it by the end of the year," Budi said recently.
He said the data integration would make diagnoses easier for doctors and allow local health authorities to create disease maps and devise better public health policies.
At its peak, PeduliLindungi was used by some 105 million people in the country, as it was mandatory to check in with the app before entering public spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that all pandemic restrictions have been lifted, some 1 million Indonesians are still actively using the app, according to the ministry.
Breach after breach
