Suspected Of Leaked Data, Ministry Of Health Asks Residents To Uninstall The E-HAC Application

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health has responded to the alleged leak of user data in the government-made Electronic Health Alert Card (e-HAC) application for travelers during the pandemic.

It is known, the research team from the vpnMentor company found that the Indonesian Ministry of Health's COVID-19 test and tracking application, called the eHAC application, risks opening up sensitive data from around 1.3 million Indonesian citizens and foreign visitors who come to this country.

Based on these allegations, the Head of the Ministry of Health's Data Center Anas Ma'ruf asked the public to delete or uninstall the e-HAC application from their respective devices.

"The government asks the public to delete or uninstall the old e-HAC application, which is separate (from the PeduliLindingi application)", said Anas in a virtual press conference, Tuesday, August 31.

Anas did not deny the alleged data leak in the e-HAC application. However, he explained, actually, this application has not been used by the government since July 2, 2021.

This is because the government currently uses the PeduliLindungi application as a condition for community activities, including data collection on vaccinations, records of COVID-19 test results, and contact tracing.

"The existing system in PeduliLindungi, in this case, e-HAC is different from the old e-HAC system. So I emphasize that the existing system in the old e-HAC is different from the e-HAC system that is in PeduliLindungi, the infrastructure is different", explained Anas.

Meanwhile, Anas claims that the data in the PeduliLindungi application is safer from data leakage because it is located in a national data center and is supported by the Ministry of Communication and Information and the National Cyber Password Agency (BSSN).

Regarding the alleged e-HAC data leak, Anas said the government was conducting an investigation. "Currently an investigation is being carried out regarding this alleged leak of information", he said.

"The alleged leak of the old eHAC data was caused by the possibility of an alleged leak on the part of partners and this has been known by the government. Currently the government is taking preventive measures and making further efforts by involving the Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia (Kominfo) and the authorities regarding the mandate of Government Regulation Number 71 of 2019 concerning System Implementation and Electronic Transactions", he concluded.