By Atty. Julius Gregory B. Delgado

THE NEED FOR LOCAL LEGISLATION ON CONTACT TRACING APPLICATION

Last Friday, this author was fortunate to be the resource speaker of the Special Session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for urgent matters requested by the Governor to be taken up before this challenging year ends. Among others, the SP tackled the province’s contact tracing application to be spearheaded by the Bohol Information and Communication Technology Office (BICTO). Using technology for contact tracing would mean convenience for the people who will not take time to write their names, addresses and contact information every time they will enter an establishment. If several establishments, especially the malls, already automated their thermal scanning, it is high time to have a handy card which can be swiped in a machine or mobile phone with an application by those manning the entrance of establishments. 

During the early stages of the pandemic, this author was locked down in the southernmost part of the Philippines, particularly in South Cotabato. The said province was among the first few which implemented an automated contact tracing system. Their contact tracing application called South Cotabato COVID-19 Contact Tracing System or SC-CCTS is simply a digitized or electronic logbook system. Their SC-CCTS Card may be in a form of an electronic one wherein you can just download through their website using your mobile phone or you can go to an accredited merchant who will print and laminate for you a CCTS Card. South Cotabato was strict as establishments, public or private, will not allow you to enter without your CCTS Card scanned.

To compel the establishments to implement the system, there is a need for local legislation. While the State of Public Health Emergency has given an ample latitude to the Governor to issue Executive Orders to combat COVID-19 and mitigate the risk of local or community transmission, it is still better to have a Provincial Ordinance creating and adopting the Bohol CCTS. In the said Ordinance, there will be a balancing of interest between public health and the privacy rights of individuals. While we are in a pandemic and we almost surrender our privacy rights by logging in personal information in almost all establishments we visit, we are still protected by Republic Act No. 10173 or the Data Privacy Act of 2012.

The South Cotabato CCTS Ordinance was challenged by the IBP Governor for Western Mindanao, Atty. Christy Joy Sollesta, on being violative of the Data Privacy Act of 2012. While this author does not want to talk the merits of the case for being sub judice, it is expected that the court will just throw away or dismiss the case considering that we are in a national public health emergency. Among the core principles of the Data Privacy Act of 2012 are proportionality and legitimate purpose. If the required personal information, sensitive or otherwise, are germane to the purpose of contact tracing, then the gathering and processing of data are allowed under the law. After all, as the National Privacy Commission said in one of its advisories, in this time of pandemic, we should not only be concerned of “misuse” of information but also of “miss used” of information.

Enacting a local ordinance on the Bohol CCTS will outline what information are required and for what purposes these will be used. Having a Provincial Ordinance on this will also have a unified contact tracing application as several municipalities have already adopted their own Quarantine Pass systems earlier this year. This pandemic is far from over as vaccines have yet to reach our shores. We must be able to live with the virus by utilizing every means available to prevent its spread including the wonders of technology.