Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced that the the MySejahtera app will be introducing a a Bluetooth based contact tracing feature called MySejahtera Trace (MySJ Trace).
The feature is similar to the now defunct MyTrace app that was released by the government earlier during the pandemic last year.
It uses Bluetooth technology to accurately detect close contact cases, but only with those who also activated their MySJ Trace.
According to the MySJ Trace FAQ, the feature uses Bluetooth Low energy and will not greatly effect the smartphone battery life, and use of other Bluetooth devices like earphones and speakers.
Of course the Bluetooth has to be left on for the feature to work.
When someone is confirmed to be Covid-19 positive, they will receive a request to share their MySJ Trace data with MOH for risk assessment and contact tracing.
The data collected includes the user’s anonymised Unique User ID (UUID), the version of the phone’s operating system, time of the encounter, and Relevant Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) – which translates to how far away the contact is from the source.
The ministry assured that the data will only be kept and accessed on user’s devices for 14 days.
Khairy in his Twitter post also said that with the introduction of this feature users will no longer need to check-out once they have checked-in to a location using MySejahtera.
The My Sejahtera update with the MySJ Trace feature is currently already available on Huawei App Gallery and will be available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store once it has been approved.
