Head, Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection KK Lim quoted in the Lianhe Zaobao article titled "Challenges in ensuring the usage of mobile applications by people"

Eversheds Harry Elias Head, Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection KK Lim has been quoted in The Lianhe Zaobao article titled "Challenges in ensuring the usage of mobile applications by people". The article was first published on 10 May 2020.

Challenges in ensuring the usage of mobile applications by people

Experts: Sports watches or Ez-Link cards should be used to assist contact-tracing work.

To encourage people to use wearable devices, experts who were interviewed believe that in addition to community-driven contact tracing, the device must also provide other purposes, such as monitoring the user's temperature and heart rate, especially revealing high-risk groups or areas, as well as sending forth warning, should the people show early symptoms of Covid19.

Despite the effectiveness of technology being able to do contact-tracing, the insufficient battery power and the commitment of users logging in consistently to the mobile applications or other wearable devices, still pose as a challenge. Experts also believe that in addition to launching new technology solutions, the government should also make use of commonly-used items that people bring out, such as sports watches or EZ-link cards, to assist in the trace work.

Below is an excerpt from the article which features comment from KK Lim: 

"With regards to whether it is possible to mandate people to use the app, KK Lim, head of cybersecurity, privacy and data protection at Eversheds Harry Elias LLP said that, under the Infectious Diseases Act, (CAP 137) the Director of Medical Services has wide/extensive powers to take preventive measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. 

But he believes that the resistance towards wearing a device, is due more to people's psychological barriers, such as privacy concerns, rather than legal issues. Even if download is made mandatory, users may not always have the app turned on, and the fact that mobile phones are personal items, will pose difficulties for enforcement actions. 

KK Lim also said that the material, battery capacity and charging method of wearable devices may affect users' acceptance rate.  

To encourage adoption of wearable devices, its intent may have to be different from "TraceTogether". Instead of tracking close contacts, it might focus the benefits of wearing the device such as detecting potential infection on high-risk groups, monitoring their temperature and heart rate etc., and issuing alerts when early symptoms of COVID-19 occur."

Full article can be found here. 

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

Author:  Yang Junxin