On January 4, 2021, Desmond Tan, Minister of State for Home Affairs, revealed that contact tracing data from TraceTogether, Singapore’s COVID Contact Tracing App, is available to police. (YouTube video)
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is empowered under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) to obtain any data, and that includes the TraceTogether data, for criminal investigations.
This contradicts the original privacy statement for the app, which stated the data would only be used “for contact tracing purposes.”
This is the slippery slope privacy advocates continually warn us about. Once government has a set of data, it will always find ways of using it for purposes never agreed to by mere citizens when the data was collected.
The question before Canadians is whether our government will similarly allow police to obtain the data collected by Canada’s COVID contact tracing app to assist in criminal investigations, which these days includes such nefarious acts as ice hockey, children’s backyard playdates and attending a church worship service.
Given the penchant for provincial governments to lock down their populations (Ontario), enact strict curfews (Quebec) and prohibit church services (British Columbia), one needn’t stretch their imagination too for to see how this could happen here too.
Very reputable Canadians say the it can’t happen here.
Very reputable people in Singapore said the same thing there.
Governments can’t be trusted.
Their objectives are always at odds with fundamental liberty.
If you can’t see the truth in that statement, please open your eyes and look around. The evidence is everywhere.
What! Say it isn’t so Chris. A political or public figure talking out of both sides of their mouth! In an environment where “plausible deniability” is seemingly part of the planning cycle.
It definitely highlights the sorry state of affairs when factoids are actually defined as “statements said enough times that they become identifiable as fact, regardless of whether or not they are actually true.” Once “Urban myth” or outright lie has transitioned to Factoid, touted as the absolute truth, it amplifies the ability of the politically correct or uber elite to chastise others.
Anyone who dares to make comparisons to recent history – ie making comparisons to the Natzi propaganda machine – are instantly a targeted.
There are lessons to be learned from history, however it seems that can not be stated openly without people being surprised and/or offended. But I digress, make no mistake, ALL programs running on smart devices today have GPS enable as a default and hence enables tracking of individuals – the only difference between them is the ease in which they can be accessed and by whom.
If you wish to test this fact, just turn off the location enabling on your web browser and see how often you are asked to allow or denied access to your location.
An undeniable fact about digital systems, if we make it easy – we actually make it easier to access, that is why there are firewalls, anti-virus software and Virtual networks. Just like free software is in fact not free, it is what we accept as a trade-off for their use.,
Don is correct. Every time you turn on your iPhone, you are tracked and quite possibly recorded. Every time you turn on your computer, quite possible that every keystroke is recorded – somewhere. Every site you access through google or any search engine, is recorded – somewhere and at the very least on your own device. Further everything recorded will likely be turned over to police on request, regardless of whether you have done anything wrong or not. The BIG LIE is alive and well.