THE RM70 million price tag of the national vaccination registration system was in the spotlight last week, when the second opt-in registration for the AstraZenaca vaccination failed to meet most Malaysians’ reasonable expectations of a hassle-free process this time around. 

We also learnt that many processes aren’t automated, as one would expect by an expensive, critical app run by the ministry championing technology. 

The reality is, while MySejahtera looks and runs adequately on the surface, much more can be done beneath, to unlock a fuller potential in these critical times. Among others, it could help the government curtail movement of people between districts and states, and help keep people who are supposed to be quarantined, at home. 

Instead of multiple systems being used to log movement, such as MySejahtera and SMILE, it could be centralised around the same one. SMILE has progressed to having QR codes on authorisation letters that can be scanned to verify authenticity, but it would be even less prone to abuse, if these were directly sent to individual MySejahtera IDs.

Companies could also provide a list of employees that can be issued with virtual travel permits on their individual phones. This negates the need for letters, verification, police station visits and the like. Applications for businesses not covered under this list, small businesses and other organisations could go through similar channels. 

It could also apply a geo-fence to 10km within that workplace, and help officers at the roadblock determine if the person has gone off-course, quicker and more accurately.  

Having a single authorising body also prevents duplicate processes and seals loopholes of the public circumnavigating regulations.  

The same ID could be used for people heading for medical appointments, vaccinations or other business exempted from a lockdown, keeping traffic flowing and safe.  

Apart from work, it can also be used to help yellow or red tag patients. It could even be set to stop people from checking in at all with a red tag, and even alert the nearest district health office of a violation, or even issue a summons automatically, much like a traffic camera. With MySejahtera check-ins being made mandatory, this is a much better way to stop this, other than naming and shaming on social media. 

For individuals, it could help with better self-regulation, self-monitoring and risk assessment. HIDE was a good initiative, but perhaps its logic and algorithm need to be fine-tuned, along with its implementation, and both to be made transparent and easy to understand to the public.

Data analytics is a powerful tool that saw usage in the early days of the pandemic, but not recently, which is ironic due to its increasing criticality, and a much larger size of usable raw data, which typically yields more accurate analysis. 

HIDE can also be used to assist businesses understand and comply with risk assessments and SOP better. Instead of an outright publication and three-day closure, a warning indicator to lessen the footfall load would serve businesses better and keep the public relatively safer.

Public spaces could also be marked for sanitisation exercises if an area gets many cases. The data set is already being used for hotspot identification at the moment.  

Data sets and raw data should also be made available to state and local governments, especially as MySejahtera is more or less mandatory nationally. These data sets could be used for better decision-making and crunching on its own.

There is wisdom in allowing decisions to be made on the lower level. Apart from taking some load off the federal government and allowing it to work on a national-level strategy, decisions made at a lower level tend to be faster and more informed on local conditions. 

With the infection numbers hitting sky-high records, resources could better be used and every advantage available should be utilised, MySejahtera being an obvious one. – June 2, 2021.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.