Duque Admits StaySafe Contact Tracing App Almost Useless During Blue Ribbon Hearing
STAYSAFE CONTACT TRACING APP – According to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, the government’s contact tracing app has “almost no impact”.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the government launched StaySafe in hopes to improve its contact tracing capabilities. The app was launched as a way to log who comes in and out of certain establishments.
But, during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on DOH’s “deficiencies,” Duque said the app was “very limited”. As such, Senator Pia Cayetano raised the question as to what purpose does the app does.
According to an article from Inquirer, Cayetano said:
In truth and in fact, the StaySafe app is merely a digital log of ‘yung nakasulat sa parang logbook na papel. That’s all it does. It’s in our imagination that it is interconnected with the national government’s tracking system or the local government’s tracking system because it is not.
Furthermore, she asked how the app would help alert the government if somebody who entered an establishment was found positive for COVID-19. Along with this, she cited issues about how exactly the app would help in “tracing” people a positive patient came in contact with.
Meanwhile, Duque defended himself and pointed fingers at the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). He said that they are the ones who “should really make the effort to explain”.
Moreover, Duque said that he would echo the concerns of the lawmakers regarding StaySafe to the DICT in the next IATF meeting.
However, based on the privacy policy of StaySafe.ph, the app does not collect personal information such as the name, contact number, or email address.
Instead, it uses Bluetooth for “exposure notification” that notifies users if he/she had been in contact with people who have tested positive for COVID-19.
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