Public Health Data and International Privacy Rules and Practices: A Case Study of Singapore

Abstract

States pursued many operative measures to fight Covid-19 disease like “Contact Tracing” Apps. With the recent amendments to the law, the Singapore police could obtain any data, including information gathered by the contact tracing app and wearable token to facilitate criminal probes. This study aims to analyze rules and standards concerning personal data processing and the privacy policy of the TraceTogether App from both domestic and international perspectives. Doctrinal legal study using explanatory and comparative approaches was applied. This study examined and evaluated important international and regional regulations and guidelines concerning the privacy of contact tracing apps in fighting pandemic. The police can use personal data collected by the ‘TraceTogether’ App to investigate serious crimes. The results reveal that police access to contact tracing data for irrelevant purposes is a broken promise and eradicates individuals’ trust in the future. The findings show that Singapore police access to personal data is against international standards and regulations on data protection, although the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act does not apply to public sectors like Police. The results highlighted that while public health is important, privacy, ethics and human rights must be observed at the same time. Singapore’s government is the “custodian” of the contact tracing data, and “stringent measures” should be established to safeguard the personal data. The results are noteworthy for lawmakers since the urgent codification done by the Singapore government to legalize such access is against principles of the personal data protection law, ethics, international rules, norms, and practices.