Their arrangement included developing a wearable device that would be issued to each resident as an approach to facilitate contact tracing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the move, unfortunately, wasn't well-received by the citizens as it started an open objection with respect to their worries about their privacy.
An online petition titled “Singapore says 'No' to wearable devices for COVID-19 contact tracing", has thus to date, garnered in excess of 17,500 signatures.
The online petition describes the usage of such devices as "conspicuous encroachments upon our privileges to protection, individual space, and opportunity of development".
In words of Wilson Low, who started the petition on June 5, "All that is stopping the Singapore government from becoming a surveillance state is the advent and mandating the compulsory usage of such a wearable device. What comes next would be laws that state these devices must not be turned off [or] remain on a person at all times -- thus, sealing our fate as a police state.”
Singapore's Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Vivian Balakrishnan, said during a parliament session Friday that while the government had introduced a contact tracing app earlier, TraceTogether, a wearable device was essential as it would not rely upon somebody possessing a smartphone.
His team howe ..
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