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Health Ministry mulling use of geofencing tech for home quarantine

SEPANG: Coming on the heels of the digital tracker pilot project which monitors individuals undergoing Covid-19 quarantine at home, the Health Ministry is now looking at using geofencing technology.

Its minister Khairy Jamaluddin said geofencing, a location-based technology, was among the solutions being proposed to monitor those placed under home surveillance order or home quarantine.

"There is a pilot project going on, where we issued wristbands (digital tracker) that they have to wear during the duration of their quarantine and we will see if it is feasible or not.

"We have also other solutions being proposed, for instance, geofencing technology, which might be easier, as the wristband is very cumbersome and we have to give it to them (those quarantined) and they have to return it to us.

"As such, we might also pioneer the geofencing technology using GPS from the phone.

"Of course, the danger (of geofencing) is one can leave their phone at home and go out. However, if you go out without your phone, cannot check-in (at premises using MySejahtera).

"There are many ways to game the system, but we have to make sure that perfect system is not the enemy of good here.

"So, we will go with the best system that we have and geofencing is a possibility," he said at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) today.

Asked on the timeline for the geofencing project, Khairy said: "I have just given the green light. So, they are preparing the back end of the geofencing."

Earlier, he observed the Covid-19 screening process involving travellers arriving at KLIA, before visiting a private health screening centre for international passengers arriving at the airport.

The health screening centre, managed by BP Healthcare, began its operation yesterday, providing Covid-19 rapid test kit (RTK), Rapid Molecular polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and Reverse Transcription PCR (RT-PCR).

The results for the tests are produced within 15 minutes, one hour and three hours, respectively, resulting in shorter wait times for passengers.

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