KUALA LUMPUR, August 3 — Putrajaya will introduce a regulation mandating all business premises to use the federal government’s MySejahtera, even if some may be using other contact tracing apps.
Senior Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob added that exemptions would be given to business premises in small towns or rural areas without stable internet connection.
“Yesterday, I went to a shopping centre and I wanted to use the MySejahtera app, but they didn’t have the app, they were using another app, so I had to write down my details by hand,” Ismail Sabri told a press conference today.
“Our special meeting this morning decided that every business outlet must use the MySejahtera app. However, they are still allowed to use other apps, like SELangkah in Selangor. It’s fine to use SELangkah, but the MySejahtera is compulsory.”
The Attorney-General’s Chambers will gazette a regulation on MySejahtera use in business premises in the nearest time, according to Ismail Sabri.
SELangkah is a contact tracing app developed by the Selangor state government used even by businesses outside the state, like in Kuala Lumpur. The app recently introduced a new feature to register residential premises throughout the country during Hari Raya Aidiladha last weekend to simplify contact tracing efforts, amid rising Covid-19 cases.
For people who have not downloaded the MySejahtera app, they must manually fill in their name and phone number on a pop-up screen on their mobile phone every time they check-in at a location using MySejahtera. But MySejahtera users who have registered the app simply need to scan the QR code at business outlets to check in without filling in any further details.
For SELangkah, people are not required to download the app and just need to register their phone number once before using it to check-in anywhere. Some shopping malls in the Klang Valley use their own QR codes to check-in visitors. Kuala Lumpur City Hall also has developed its own contact tracing app called KLSTEP, while the Sarawak state government has two contact tracing apps: Qmunity and CovidTrace Sarawak.
Update at 6.55pm: This article was amended to clarify that MySejahtera users do not need to fill in further details when using the app to check-in at locations.
