An Imaginative, Satirical Take on TraceTogether

Disclaimer: The content in this article contains satire, and should not be interpreted as factual information about TraceTogether. For up-to-date information, please refer to the TraceTogether website, as well as resources from the Ministry of Health. This article is not meant to formulate your opinion on the programme.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the need for healthcare and government workers worldwide to become contact tracers — a job that requires one to be able to effectively interpret data in a timely manner. At the same time, these workers would need to be able to get a COVID-19 positive person’s movement records, as well as a list of the people they have been in close contact with.

The problem with contact tracing methods such as interviews, transport records, as well as receipts, is that it is quite incomplete. The honour system aside, forming a complete and useful picture of one’s movement requires the use of more intrusive data collection methods. Singapore’s solution? SafeEntry, and her partner TraceTogether.

When I and other Singaporeans heard of TraceTogether, we were rightly concerned. Why are they tracking my movements? Why do they need to know who I’ve been seeing? A petition popped up, and Minister Vivian made some clarifications. Some were satisfied, but not me.

My concerns are as such:

1. The possibility of tracking who has been in a specific location that does not use SafeEntry (e.g. houses).
2. The documentation of literally everyone I’ve been in close contact with.

To fully explain and illustrate my concerns, here is a purely hypothetical scenario.

In an alternate universe…

The Communist Chaps Brigade (CCB) has won the 2020 General Elections by a landslide, ousting the sitting Sinkies’ Party (SP). The leader, General Ka Ni Na, is a dictator set on ruling Singapore till the end of time.

GEN Ka has officially launched TraceTogether, and made it mandatory.

The ousted leader of SP, former Prime Minister Wah Lau Eh, has convened his party members at 69 Oxtail Street, to save Singapore from GEN Ka. However, due to TraceTogether, PM Wah has some hurdles in his way.

SURVEILLANCE AT 69 OXTAIL STREET

The ingenious GEN Ka has received word that PM Wah has been meeting his kar kias at his home, but has no idea who he has been meeting with. Despite the deployment of SafeEntry, it is not required for homes.

However, all Singaporeans, including PM Wah and his party members, carry TraceTogether tokens. This still isn’t very useful though, as the Token only captures proximity data via Bluetooth technology and does not capture GPS / geolocation data. Hence, he doesn’t know which members have been meeting PM Wah.

Despite this, GEN Ka finds a way. The TraceTogether team places TraceTogether tokens around 69 Oxley Street, and retrieves them after a few days. After accessing the data on the token, they are able to see the list of other TraceTogether devices that it has been in close proximity with.

Now, GEN Ka knows who PM Wah has been meeting at his home. Operation Cold Storage is executed, and PM Wah and his men have been arrested, including the delivery rider who was there just to deliver some Zi Char.

PM WAH CONTRACTS COVID-19

During the investigation, GEN Ka realises that not all of the Sinkies’ Party has been arrested. It turns out that PM Wah has been meeting with other party members outside his home.

However, the records of who PM Wah has met will only be accessed by MOH authorised personnel if he tests positive for COVID-19. GEN Ka is stumped, as even if PM Wah contracts COVID-19, the encrypted data is kept on the device until the user consents to share it with MOH for contact tracing.

Thankfully for GEN Ka, in the event of a COVID-19 case, data can be collected, used and disclosed without consent to carry out contact tracing and other response measures, and TraceTogether data is just another type of record.

GEN Ka sends in a COVID-19 positive person to infect PM Wah, and when he tests positive, all TraceTogether data is now in GEN Ka’s hands. The Sinkies’ Party is done for, and CCB rules for eternity.

…and back to reality.

Will such a thing happen in Singapore? Likely not. However, the TraceTogether programme could possibly be abused by either foreign agents in government, or when Singapore is taken over by a party without our best interests in mind.

Thankfully, our current government can be trusted to not abuse the power given to them by TraceTogether.

Looking to the future, I hope that the TraceTogether programme need not be mandatory, and that is only possible through the development of a vaccine as soon as possible, so that the economy may get back on track once again.

-

Sincerely glad that he is not in the United States,

Max.