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View all search resultsRights groups ask for transparency in COVID-19 contact tracing
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T
he ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and various human rights organizations have sent an open letter to the Indonesian government, demanding transparency in its contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an open letter to the Communications and Information Ministry, Indonesia’s representative to the AICHR and 13 organizations urged the government to issue a specific regulation on its contact tracing efforts, including on the data collected and how the data should be treated to protect privacy.
“In April 2020, as COVID-19 spread, Indonesia rolled out the PeduliLindungi app. While other countries have released the source code of their exposure notification apps, the only available information about PeduliLindungi is from the government. The source code of the app has never been released and the privacy policy of the app has never been clearly stated at the iOS and Android app stores,” the letter’s signees said in a statement on Tuesday.
The fact that Indonesia also lacks a robust personal data protection regulation in line with the best practices -- such as that implemented by Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – raises concerns about privacy protection, they added.
“The data collection process from all contact tracing efforts must be in line with internationally accepted standards and best practices, particularly the World Health Organization’s ‘Ethical considerations to guide the use of digital proximity tracking technologies for COVID-19 contact tracing,” they urged.
In this regard, the parties request that the Indonesian government “release the white paper and the source code of the PeduliLindungi app under an open-source license”, in which all necessary details of the system’s architecture, functions, protocols, data management and security design are placed.
“The source code should be that of the deployed system, complete, up-to-date and buildable so that the system’s security and privacy treatment can be independently verified. The white paper and the source code must be regularly updated along with the app,” they said.
