Dr Balakrishnan, who is also Foreign Affairs Minister, also said he “had not thought of” the CPC when he spoke previously about how data from TraceTogether would be used.
On Jun 5, before the planned rollout of the TraceTogether programme, Dr Balakrishnan said in Parliament that TraceTogether will strictly be used for contact tracing.
He reiterated this point a few days later when he said: "Again I want to emphasise, there is no electronic tagging. There is no geolocation tracking. This is only purely focused on Bluetooth proximity data, and only used for contact tracing.”
READ: COVID-19 contact tracing ‘absolutely essential’; wearable TraceTogether tokens to be rolled out in June
“The keyword here is criminal investigation," said Dr Balakrishnan on Tuesday on the provisions in the CPC.
"We have gone to great lengths to protect the privacy of all TraceTogether users in all normal use cases. But TraceTogether data is not exempt from Section (20) of the CPC."
He added: “And I think members know me well, I am always very frank. Frankly, I had not thought of the CPC when I spoke earlier.
"This application of the CPC is not unique to TraceTogether data."
Dr Balakrishnan cited the example of phone or banking records that may be protected by specific privacy laws but are also subject to the same provisions under the code.
“I think Singaporeans can understand why Section 20 of the CPC confers such broad powers. There may be serious crimes, murder, terrorist incidents where the use of TraceTogether data in police investigations may be necessary in the public interest. The police must be given the tools to bring criminals to justice and protect the safety and security of all Singaporeans,” he said.
"TEMPORARY RECORD" OF CLOSE CONTACTS
Contact tracing is also “absolutely essential” for the control of COVID-19 to identify those who may have been exposed to infected patients, Dr Balakrishnan stressed.
“We have always been conscious of the need to protect personal privacy. And to this end we took great effort in the design of the system, the coding of the application, we even open-sourced the code for public scrutiny and to share with overseas jurisdictions,” he added.
Dr Balakrishnan said that TraceTogether only collects Bluetooth proximity data “on a temporary basis”.
“It does not collect - and I want to emphasise - it does not collect GPS location data nor movement data. So let me reiterate this - the TraceTogether app and the token were not designed to allow any government agency to track the user,” he added
“The app or the token only keeps a temporary record of who you have come into close contact with for a prolonged basis. Neither the app nor the token tracks a user’s location.”
The data is then stored in an encrypted form locally on the device - a user’s phone or the token. The encrypted data is then "automatically purged" after 25 days, said Dr Balakrishnan.
Dr Balakrishnan then reiterated that he made the statements when the CPC was “not in my mind”.
Adding that he is “obsessively concerned” with accuracy with an “absolute adherence to honesty”, Dr Balakrishnan said: “And that means over the years from time to time when I have misspoken I have said so. I have never shied away from saying so because it is far more important to maintain trust.
“I might be right or I might be wrong or I might have mistaken something or overlooked something, but rest assured when I discover it, I will say so and to the best extent possible, we will find a solution together. That is my approach and I don’t see any need to change from that and I hope you understand.”