Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 10) — The head of the technology company which developed StaySafe said his team has done what’s necessary for the turnover of the contact tracing app to the government, but claimed the same cannot be said about those in charge at the Department of Health.
“We’ve tried our best to do the donation, but it so happens that we found out that they need to prepare first from their end,” David Almirol, CEO of Multisys Technology Corporation, told CNN Philippines on Wednesday.
It has been nine months since StaySafe was designated as the government’s official contact tracing app. Almirol said the digital platform now has about 15 million users nationwide. Its donation to the government, however, is not yet complete.
Almirol said among the main problems is the location where the technology would have to be transferred.
A national COVID-19 Inter-Agency Task Force resolution states that all data collected through StaySafe should be migrated to and stored in the COVID-Kaya system, which was developed by the DOH and the World Health Organization.
“But when we tried to donate and transfer the technology, they told us the COVID-Kaya is not yet ready that time,” Almirol said.
But during a joint House committee hearing on Tuesday, Director Eric Tayag of the DOH’s Knowledge Management and Information Technology Service said app modifications being introduced by Multisys are one of the reasons the turnover process is dragging on.
READ: StaySafe app donation not yet finalized
Almirol denied the allegation, saying Multisys had also been informing Tayag of the updates but that the details were not being relayed to the IATF.
“We don’t know what’s going on, because we felt like he’s not into accepting StaySafe,” Almirol said. “We felt like we’re not actually supported by his group, to be honest.”
He added that they have submitted all the needed documents.
Almirol also claimed the issues they’re having with the health officials are not an isolated case. He said other members of the information technology industry dealing with the department are also having problems with Tayag’s team.
“There are several IT groups that donated systems to DOH that is not actually accepted by DOH, because [of the] same problem: Dr. Tayag’s team is actually not ready to take over, and they’re trying to dribble us in the documentation thing, and that’s so frustrating, to be honest,” he said.
Earlier, contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong likewise expressed frustration over the slow turnover completion, saying it is negatively affecting the government’s COVID-19 response.
Besides problems with the modifications, Tayag told lawmakers the donation cannot be finalized yet pending certification of security from the Department of Information and Communications Technology.
During its Tuesday hearing, the House committees on health and on information and communications technology adopted a resolution urging the IATF to establish a unified national contact tracing protocol to ensure a more effective health emergency data monitoring system in the country.
