New Laws to Clarify What Offences Would Allow TraceTogether Data to be Used Coming

Some Singapore residents are not too happy at the moment.

When TraceTogether was first introduced, residents were told it would only be used for contact tracing purposes.

But then, after the authorities managed to reach the 70% uptake target for the app and token, one minister dropped a bombshell:  the Singapore Police Force (SPF) can use TraceTogether data for criminal investigations.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said that such data usage is “pretty much restricted to very serious offences”, but residents weren’t appeased, as “serious” was a rather expansive term.

Well, we’ll soon have a concrete understanding of what constitutes a “very serious offence”.

New Laws to Clarify What Offences Would Allow TraceTogether Data to be Used Coming

The Singapore government will introduce legislation listing seven categories of serious offences for which TraceTogether data can be used for police investigations.

According to the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO), this includes offences related to terrorism, drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, and serious sexual offences such as rape.

This legislation dictates that TraceTogether data will only be used for contact tracing purposes, unless there is a “clear and pressing need to use that data for criminal investigation of serious offences”, SNDGO said.

Here are the seven categories of serious offences:

1. Offences involving the use or possession of corrosive substances, offensive/dangerous weapons, e.g possession of firearms, armed robbery with the use of firearms.
2. Terrorism-related offences under the Terrorism (Suppression of Bombings) Act, Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act, and Terrorism (Suppression of Misuse of Radioactive Material).
3. Crimes against persons where the victim is seriously hurt or killed e.g murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt (where the victim’s injury is of a life-threatening nature).
4. Drug trafficking offences that attract the death penalty.
5. Escape from legal custody where there is reasonable belief that the subject will cause imminent harm to others.
6. Kidnapping
7. Serious sexual offences, e.g rape, sexual assault by penetration.

The legislation will be introduced in the next Parliamentary session in February on a Certificate of Urgency, according to CNA.

Privacy Policy Updated

One Redditor noticed that the privacy policy for TraceTogether was updated following the revelation about its data.

Previously, it stated: “We will only use TraceTogether data for contact tracing”.

But after the revelation, it now says: “TraceTogether is designed for contact tracing”.

“We acknowledge our error in not stating that data from TraceTogether is not exempt from the Criminal Procedure Code,” SNDGO said on Friday.

“We value the trust that the public has placed in the TraceTogether programme, and feedback from members of the public.”

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