The currently available technology for AI in covid 19 in Malaysia and why is it not helpful enough

With the current situation of the covid 19 cases, the government of Malaysia has tried many ways to help prevent the further spreading of covid 19. By using the technology that is available to the public, the government decided to create an app called Mysejahtera which makes a user scan a QR code when entering a public location. The locations include sports complexes, shopping malls, retail stores, restaurants, and others. The app helps the government to keep track of the flow of traffic in order to know who and where to quarantine when there is any case of covid 19 appearings. This helps slow down the spreading of covid 19 in the country as they can easily track who has been to the location that has been infected, it is achieved by tracking the history of the user to keep track of the places they have checked in.

In addition to tracking the locations of where the user has been to, the app also has a location service which is named Hotspot that indicates if the location the user has inputted has been affected with covid cases within a 1km radius from their searched location in the last 14 days. Users who use this function will be more likely to avoid such places to avoid contracting covid 19. This helps prevent the further spread of covid 19 by reducing the total number of people who frequent these places. However, the QR code scanner is often unreliable and slow as it relies on lighting angle and distance. The user finds it inconvenient and uncomfortable and slow as they might take a long time scanning while there is a long queue behind them. This increases the risk of cross-infection as the longer they stay the higher chance of getting infected.

The functions in the Mysejahtera app are useful in helping to prevent the spreading of the disease, but it is not always full proof and may have some flaws in the system. One such example of a flaw is that it does not require the user to register in order for the app to function. This is said so because most of the citizens could just simply scan the barcode from the retails without having an account in the MySejahtera app. This makes the tracking of the user hard as a non-registered user does not have personal details added to the app. This makes the process of quarantining an area hard as they have to first find out where the user lives in and who are their immediate contact which most likely is infected as well. It also makes it harder for the government to track the places the user has visited if the user does not own a MySejahtera account since they can’t track it through the user’s history, it will require more work to be done to track the user’s past location. Hence, the government will have to use a lot of resources in this process which is very time inefficient.

Furthermore, the app has a feature for the manage dependant designed for the dependants who do not have access to a smartphone. However, the app does not verify the details of the dependent, as shown above, the passport number/ ic number can be faked easily. The relationship between the people can be faked as they have no way of checking if the person is your immediate family. This will increase the difficulties of the relevant authority to carry out the tracking process if the details provided are not accurate enough. Besides, in the current situation where the government has enforced the conditional movement control order, only the relevant authorities are allowed to go outside. Hence, this app does not help in this situation as people can just easily scan and lie about their profession.

Additionally, the app does not restrict the user’s movement. For example, a person who has used the Hotspot function may still be able to go to the location with a high risk of contracting covid 19. This is because the users themselves are not restricted from going to the location. The warnings and potential risks only make them avoid going to similar places. One such example is malls and supermarkets. If a mall or supermarket recently got a covid 19 carrier, the mall will be quarantined and marked as a place to avoid on the app, but it does not stop the user from going near the mall nor going to other malls or supermarkets to do their shopping. Also, the user can just fake their travel history and symptoms in the app because the government is not able to fully check and verify their travel history. This is very dangerous as it will make the relevant authorities very hard to identify and prevent those who have a high risk of getting covid-19 from wandering around.