The TraceTogether programme is rhetorically constructed as a voluntary programme that uses either a smartphone app or a bluetooth token to track locations that users check into as well as monitor who an user has been in contact with.
During and since its launch in June, 2020, the programme has been celebrated as an exemplar of technology-enabled COVID-19 prevention and management, having been projected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an exemplar of effective COVID-19 response. As with various facets of Singapore's technocratic management projected as models, the "Singapore model" of COVID-19 management held up the TraceTogether programme as an organizing feature of pandemic prevention. The TraceTogether smartphone app and token are used by 78% of the people in Singapore, with Balakrishnan calling it "perhaps the most successful contact-tracing program in the world."
The surveillance capacity of the technology in tracing and tracking contacts lies at the heart of the model of pandemic management. The underlying argument, that the technology's capacity to quickly track down pathways of infection and guide necessary prevention responses, foregrounds the public health necessity of the surveillance weighed against the concerns regarding violation of privacy. Citizens are asked to give up their privacy so a public health response can be effectively delivered.
These concerns regarding the violation of privacy are particularly salient in the context of authoritarian regimes such as Singapore, amidst the absence of accountability of the Government to publics and public transparency of data uses.
Situating the TraceTogether programme within a broader architecture of surveillance and control in Singapore raises vital questions regarding the public health benefits of contact tracing technologies. These benefits need to be situated in the backdrop of the harms to health and wellbeing posed by technologies of surveillance.
Being surveilled produces critical challenges to mental health and wellbeing.
Add to these structures of surveillance the forms of control that are exerted by authoritarian regimes. The control over expression and the corresponding absence of communicative infrastructures for voice, it may be argued, similarly produce deleterious health effects and are fundamentally violations of the human right to communication. What for instance are the health effects of silencing and erasure of voice? What are the health effects of the cultures of fear that are calibrated through various techniques of authoritarian management? What are the effects of technology-based surveillance on mental health? For instance, in the ethnographic work carried out with low-wage migrant workers in Singapore, participants often report poor mental health, attributing this to the feeling of constantly being under surveillance and not having avenues to express their concerns. The consideration of the negative public health effects of technologies of surveillance, heightened in authoritarian regimes, is largely missing from the current conversation on technology-based contact tracing programmes in COVID-19 management.
Also worth interrogating is the discourse of voluntary adoption of the contact tracing technology. In a context where the programme became required to enter spaces such as grocery stores or workplaces, the adoption of the technology becomes necessary simply to get by. The uptake of the technology among Singaporeans increased when the technology became a necessity to negotiate everyday livelihood.
The state assured individuals that their data would be protected, stating "the data will never be accessed, unless the user tests positive for Covid-19 and is contacted by the contact tracing team." Stated the Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation initiative, Vivian Balakrishnan that the app and the data it collects are "purely for contact tracing, period." At a Multi-Ministry Task Force press conference discussing the programme, Education Minister and Minister in Charge of COVID19 response Lawrence Wong stated "there is no intention to use a TraceTogether app or TraceTogether token as a means of picking up breaches of existing rules. There is no intention at all. "
This assurance by the state has been critically read and interrogated by academics and activists, placing the TraceTogether programme within Singapore's wider infrastructure of surveillance and control. Activists have questioned the likelihood of the deployment of the technology to further consolidate the power of the state. The contact tracing technology has been situated alongside other technologies/techniques of digital control such as smart cameras placed on lamp posts and the Prevention of Online Falsehoods and Manipulations Act (POFMA), which are seen as instruments for further solidifying the power of the state. Amidst the launch of the contact tracing programme, a publicly-led online petition has gathered over 50,000 signatures, critiquing the deployment of the technology as an instrument of fortifying state control.
These concerns were validated by the conversation that unfolded in the Singapore parliament and the subsequent responses by the state. Departing from his initial statement, noted Vivian Balakrishnan, "On legal provisions. Under Section 20 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), the Police have the power to order anyone to produce data for the purposes of a criminal investigation. The key word here is criminal investigation." He then went on to note:
"We have gone to great lengths to protect the privacy of all TT users in all normal use cases, but TraceTogether data is not exempt from this CPC provision. Police can only ask for access by requiring a person involved in or assisting a criminal investigation to produce either his smartphone or his token. Frankly, I had not thought of the CPC when I spoke earlier. This application of the CPC is not unique to TT data. Other forms of sensitive data, for example phone or banking records, which may be protected by specific privacy laws, are also nevertheless subject to the provision of the CPC. And from time to time, the Police have done so, with proper safeguards, and with the good outcomes that Singaporeans have come to expect from our police investigations.
I think Singaporeans can understand why Section 20 of the CPC confers such broad powers. There may be serious crimes like murders or terrorist incidents where the use of TT data in police investigations may be necessary, in the public interest. The Police must be given the tools to bring criminals to justice, and protect the safety and security of all Singaporeans. Especially in very serious cases, and where lives are at stake, it is not reasonable for us to say that certain classes of data should be out of reach of the Police. This power – on the part of the Police – to access data must be exercised judiciously, and with utmost restraint."
Note here the casual reference to the Minister not having "thought of the CPC" when he assured the public earlier about the use of the data "purely for contact tracing, period." This turning on its head so casually of an earlier assurance made by a minister that formed the basis of the public trust for the use of the contact tracing technology is only possible in an authoritarian context without adequate checks and balances in places, and without democratic structures to hold the state to account. The Minister then goes on to assure the public that "once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, and there is no longer a need for contact tracing, we will most happily and cheerfully stand the TT programme down." Ironically, this call for public trust in the assurance of the discontinuing of the programme is crafted in the very statement that demonstrates the departure of the state from an earlier assurance.
Worth interrogating in the narrative are the constructions of security and safety. What are the parameters of definition of safety and security? What are the parameters guiding the definition of "very serious cases?" Who operationalizes these parameters? What are the checks and balances around these parameters? Are these parameters open to scrutiny by opposition political parties? Are these parameters publicly available? Given the history, including more recent incidences of cases filed against activists practicing their civil liberties, do participation in protests or holding of smiley emojis count as very serious cases? Given instances of technological artefacts owned by journalists and activists being taken by police, critical questions ought to be asked around the conceptual scope defining threats to safety and security.
As I had noted in a blog post earlier, what lies at the heart of effective pandemic response is democratic decision-making and participation. The limit of the "Singapore Model" of COVID-19 management I had argued is tied to its authoritarian structure, the lack of checks and balances, the absence of democratic processes for demanding transparency and for holding the structures accountable to publics. The COVID-19 outbreaks in the migrant worker dormitories stand testimony to the limits of the Singapore Model built on technocratic processes without voice democracy. The historic and ongoing erasure of worker voices translated into a public health response that had not anticipated the likelihood of the outbreaks in the dormitories housing low-wage migrant workers in crowded conditions.
Public and community participation in prevention and in the implementation of public health interventions are vital to the sustenance of health and wellbeing, both in the long and short term.
Vivian Balakrishnan notes, "Mr Speaker, members of this House, every society has to find the right balance between protecting public health on one hand, and personal privacy on the other. I believe it is possible to find that optimal point by being transparent, open, diligent, disciplined, and doing our best all the time collectively." Transparency, openness, diligence when put into practice beyond the rhetoric, require democratic processes for participation and accountability.