Baguio gov’t hit for taking private info from city folks; city council presses review

By Jordan G. Habbiling

BAGUIO CITY – Members of the city council urged the executive department to review the process of registration for Baguio In My Pocket (BIMP), the city’s portal application, to avoid data breach.
    This, after Baguio residents questioned the program saying it intruded into their privacy and was unnecessary.
    Those who entered city hall the past two weeks complained they had to accomplish a form for the App by putting private data or be refused entry to city hall. 
    In a resolution, the legislators urged the city mayor’s office and Information Technology Business Solutions (ITBS), the Pasig-based app provider, to go over the registration form and revise it if necessary to include only needed basic information.
    Councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda questioned specific information being asked by the registration form such as “ethnicity” and “religion” saying such information were not needed for contact tracing, business transactions, and availment of social services.
    Tabanda said registrants at the registration desks were being made to provide all information asked in the form which could be “in violation of the Data Privacy Act of 2012.”
    Councilor Benny Bomogao asked the IBTS and the mayor’s office to strike out parts of the registration form that ask “sensitive information” to avoid any personal data breach.
    Lester Morfe, IBTS representative, and Philip Puzon, executive assistant V of the city mayor's office, said registrants have the option whether or not to provide secondary information such as ethnicity and religion. Only primary information are required for registration, they added.
    “When you register using the application, there are mandatory fields and there are secondary fields. The mandatory fields are marked with an asterisk. The registration team printed the form from the app so that people could queue up at the City Hall lobby and be given assistance during their registration. It was done very quickly and the team just copied all fields from the app when they printed the registration form,” Puzon said.
    Puzon said registrants may delete any secondary information they have provided using their android phones or may ask assistance from the registration officers at the registration area.
Puzon and Morfe told the city council data collected from the application are secured since the cloud server being used has “the best security systems in place.”
    Puzon said the gathered data will be stored in a private cloud server  controlled and managed by the city government.
    The ITBS will only serve as the data processor and will not hold and store the data, he added.
    BIMP is a mobile application that aims to promote an e-government ecosystem which includes hands-free transactions, citizen data management, contact tracing, and other essential services for Baguio residents.
    Those who have successfully registered are provided quick response codes which they can access through the BIMP app.
    The city government recently implemented the “No QR Code, No Entry” policy for all its officials and employees and for all those with transactions inside the city hall.