AMMAN — The recent
release of a new feature to a government app that allows the public to access
vaccination information of other people has raised privacy concerns.
اضافة اعلان
The “
Sanadjo”
application recently added a new service, which allows people to look up and
know who has been vaccinated and who has not.
The new service,
which appears on the main interface of the application, shows a green sign if a
person has received the first and second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. A red sign
appears if a person has only received one dose or no dose at all.
The application
requires users to provide a national number, date of birth, or scan of a
person’s ID to find out someone’s vaccination status, according to Al-Ghad.
Some argue that this
measure is necessary to facilitate the enforcement of defense orders that
require institutions to verify that their employees and customers are
vaccinated.
“There must be ways
to ensure that the privacy of individuals is not infringed, and of course, the
information that he has received the vaccine or not is a personal information,
and knowing it without the owner’s permission is considered an infringement on
his privacy according to global standards of privacy," Issa Mahasneh, an
expert in security and digital privacy, told
Jordan News.
However, the expert
noted the requirement of the ID number of the other person and their date of
birth. “We assume that this information is known only to its owner.”
Mahasneh added “What
the government has done is to find a middle ground in order to be able to
facilitate some things for the workers in the institutions and the owners of
the institutions. Some may think that accessing such information is difficult,
as many people think that the ID number is confidential information, while in
fact; obtaining it is not against the law, so using it to find out about someone
else's health seems a bit sensitive."
“We should not
neglect the fact that the information about receiving the vaccine falls within
the health information of the individual, which is considered personal, and
therefore the consent of the person concerned is required in order for this
information to be shared.”
“I personally do not
find that there is a need for such a step by the government. Suppose that the
owner of the institution wants to make sure that their employee has received
the vaccine — they can simply ask them to show the vaccination certificate.
Therefore, there is an optional disclosure from the data owner based on the
contractual terms with the employer, so that both parties agree to such a step,
and neither of them infringes on the privacy of the other without his
knowledge."
Mahasneh also noted
that the app, Sanad, displays the vaccination certificate from the vaccine.jo
website, which is the same website that citizens use to make an appointment to
receive the vaccine, and the website does not mention that this information can
be used, or shown to someone else, “so its use by Sanad application does not
follow the privacy terms.”
He concluded,
"It is necessary to find a way within the application to ensure that the
data is not displayed until after the consent of the data owner, as the
implementation of the defense order in this way will be safer."
For
Haitham Abu Nima, a citizen, this particular piece of information “is not very
personal.”
"I find it my
right to know that I am protected from infection the COVID-19 virus while
dealing with other people; this is what is called public safety," Abu Nima
told
Jordan News.
Despite several attempts by Jordan News to contact the
Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship regarding the issue, they were
not available for comment.
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