House Member Urges Government to Evaluate PeduliLindungi App

english.jpnn.com, JAKARTA - House Commission IX member Saleh Partaonan Daulay has urged the Indonesian government to immediately respond to accusations by the United States Department of State regarding alleged human rights violations in the use of the PeduliLindungi application.

Saleh said the accusations greatly harmed Indonesia's reputation on the global stage, regardless how serious the government was about breaking the chain of Covid-19.

"This accusation cannot be taken lightly, especially since the PeduliLindungi application is allegedly storing people's data illegally and without permission," Saleh told JPNN.com, Friday (15/4).

According to Saleh, the PeduliLindungi application does store user data, which include names, population identification numbers (NIK), dates of birth, e-mails, and travel histories.

"[People] must scan the barcode to check into almost all crowded places that are visited," he said.

The application is intended to carry out contact tracing in order to curb the spread of Covid. Through this application, the Covid-19 task force can monitor the close contacts of potential Covid-19 carriers.

Saleh asked the government to provide a complete explanation and answer all accusations made by the US government before the issue spread further.

He said Indonesia's image as the largest democracy in Asia must be maintained. Moreover, the US report stated that the allegations had been voiced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Indonesia.