Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong says local government units must have a unified effort for contact tracing. FILE PHOTO / EV ESPIRITU
MANILA, Philippines — Contact tracing czar and Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong on Thursday assured the public that the government underwent an assessment to make sure that the data, which the digital contact tracing app StaySafe.ph will gather, is not prone to abuse.
“It is fully secured na I’m pretty sure mayroon na silang security features na nilagay sa system and pinag-aralan naman e, ibig kong sabihin it underwent a very meticulous na evaluation ng DICT (Department of Information and Communication Technology) especially focusing on security of data,” Magalong told reporters after the launch of StaySafe.ph in Manila, responding to public’s issue on the app’s data privacy.
(It is fully secured and I am pretty sure that security features have been put in place, it has been studied. It underwent a very meticulous evaluation by the DICT especially focusing on security of data.)
StaySafe, which was first launched in April this year, is the government’s official digital contact tracing which will also help in reporting the health conditions of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The digital platform is free of charge and uses QR codes to present for health checks and contact tracing. It will augment the Department of Health’s manual contact tracing efforts.
DICT will be in charge of monitoring the data integration and security, Magalong said.
Unify all contact tracing app
Magalong, meanwhile, said they are eyeing to unify all contact tracing digital apps after some local government units (LGUs) launched their own online contact tracing apps.
“Kailangan yung ibang contact tracing digital applications nung iba dapat maintegrate. Kasi you should understand even after we launched the StaySafe other local government units also made some initiative to come up with their own digital contact tracing,” he said.
(We need to understand that contact tracing digital applications must be integrated. Because you should understand after we launched the StaySafe, other LGUs also made some initiative to come up with their own.)
The DICT will help in using an application programming interface (API) which will connect all digital contact tracing apps, Magalong also noted.
“There will be an interface, API, ibig sabihin [meaning] there will be a system that will allow several systems to talk to each other so it is all about integration,” he said.