Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III affirmed that the country’s unified contact tracing app, StaySafe.ph, had “almost no impact” since it was launched in May last year.
Duque made the remark after Senator Pia Cayetano raised the limitations of the mobile application during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on Wednesday, August 25.
“In truth and in fact, the StaySafe app is merely a digital log of ‘yung nakasulat sa parang logbook na papel,” Cayetano said. “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. So all it is is a log of who went in and out.”
“Now who is tracking that? Who is going to alert that establishment if somebody is positive? Who is going to trace back when somebody is positive in the local government kung saan siya nagpunta? There is really no system that is doing that,” she noted.
As Inquirer reported, Cayetano said that without people filling in these “gaps,” the application “is not going to do anything for you.”
“It’s just a log that individual establishments have,” she stressed.
Duque verified Cayetano’s claim, saying, “I think it’s very limited, almost no impact.”
“Alam ko po dito, noong inadopt na ‘yan ng national government, naka-connect ‘yan sa ating COVID Kaya, ‘yung data repository system ng DOH,” Duque continued. “Kasi doon malalaman kung sino ‘yung mga nagpositive tapos sino ‘yung mga exposed. But it was March pa the last time we had an update.”
The health secretary added that the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) “should really make the effort to explain” the benefits of StaySafe. “We will echo the concerns to the DICT during the next IATF,” he assured.
As stated on the app’s policy statement, StaySafe does not ask for its users’ personal information, such as name, age, gender, contact number, photo, address, and/or email address.
It was built similar to other contact tracing apps developed by other countries, which only uses a device’s Bluetooth to exchange IDs or “random string of numbers” with other users of the app. After which, the app will notify its users should they be exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
See also: StaySafe.ph app now comes with contact tracing feature
The app’s developer Multisys Technologies Corp. turned over StaySafe.ph to the Department of Interior and Local Government in March 2020. It was also then that the DILG ordered all local government units to retire their respective contract tracing systems for the StaySafe app.
“We will soon fully implement the StaySafe application and we don’t want to complicate the situation any further. It will be easier and more cost-efficient for LGUs to just use StaySafe instead of buying their own,” DILG spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said in a statement then.
In a separate briefing in April, Malaya said that the app will be connected to DOH’s database for COVID-19 cases.
“The importance of this is for you to be notified, for instance, when you are close to somebody who tested positive for Covid-19 upon entering a restaurant. Once the QR (quick response) code is scanned and you are registered, you will be notified because StaySafe is linked to the Covid-19 repository system of the DOH and it contains information on Covid-19 cases, as well as those who have symptoms or asymptomatic,” he explained.
Apart from Cayetano, tracing czar and Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong admitted he does not regard the StaySafe app “highly reliable.”
“Insofar as the DILG is concerned, nasa study and learning status pa po sila,” Magalong said in a televised briefing on May 4 this year. “‘Yan po yung talagang kulang pa po ang documentation na binigay ng StaySafe kaya hindi pa po natin makumpleto at masabing categorically na highly reliable na po itong StaySafe,” Magalong said.
“Kailangan pa po pag-aralan, ayusin pa at ayusin po pati yung documentation, enhance pa further ang kanyang functionalities,” he added.
The post StaySafe gov’t contact tracing app had ‘almost no impact,’ says Duque appeared first on Speed Magazine.
Source: Speed Magazine PH
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