KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 — The National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) has asked the Malaysian National Space Agency (Mysa) to build it a surveillance tool to "monitor” people who use drugs (PWUD), using a system originally designed as a satellite location identification system to improve flood rescues.

Mysa previously said the idea for a flood rescue app came from the desire to turn satellite technology into a versatile service that could help any government agency solve complex problems, and develop better policies.

Senior civil servants were convinced, according to Mysa executive director Azlikamil Napiah, who said the agency is now collaborating with close to a dozen state and federal government agencies to build customised problem-solving systems around its satellites.

Among these was AADK. Azlikamil told reporters at the launch of MyIDEA, the name given to the prototype of the flood rescue mission app in September that the anti-drug agency is keen to tap Mysa’s satellites and expertise in building custom satellite-based systems to "improve its operations”.

"Mysa has been invited by AADK to demonstrate the functions and capability of MyIDEA that can increase the efficiency of their operation,” the space agency said in a reply to inquiries sent in after the launch.

"AADK realised the huge potential of this application in facilitating their assignment and requested that a customised version of the application be developed for their usage.”

AADK has not provided details on how it plans to use the technology, apart from saying it is exploring all technologies that can help "analyse, plotting and reading the trend related to drug addiction in a particular area based on our past records and statistics.”

The agency did not respond to Malay Mail’s inquiry if the Mysa-built app would include surveillance capabilities. It also did not respond to questions about concerns around privacy or personal data protection of the persons being watched.

Mass surveillance?

MyIDEA itself is built as a simple-to-use system that allows people trapped in flooded areas to request for rescue by just sending an SOS, either through the text messaging application WhatsApp or a short messaging service (SMS).

Once the SOS is sent, the satellite picks up the signal instantly to detect the senders’ exact GPS coordinates. The SOS sender can also provide additional information like the name of location or nearby landmarks.

Mysa said the accuracy of the satellite location identification system is near 100 per cent.

Based on the space agency’s explanation, it’s possible that the customised modification of the app requested by the AADK could be used to track movements of persons who use drugs, or to allow the public to submit complaints about a premise suspected of housing PWUD.

The national anti-drug agency is already running an open hotline to "encourage” the public to report information about a person or premises just based on suspicion alone, which critics say enables "witch hunts” based on entrenched bias and prejudice about certain peoples or groups.

Potential for overreach

Government-run surveillance programmes have long been mired in controversy, and civil rights advocates have argued that such scheme pose inherent threats that stretch beyond privacy concerns — even when they might appear justified on the surface.

The nature of surveillance itself, secretive and hidden, perpetuates a power imbalance between the "watcher and the watched” that risks causing various harms such as discrimination, selective enforcement, and political coercion, wrote Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St Louis, USA, who specialises in privacy law and civil liberties.

These dangerous effects often thrive in an environment where regulation and ethics governing surveillance programmes are lacking or weak. In Malaysia, both are essentially non-existent, noted Abdul Samad Abdul Ghani, a Universiti Malaya law lecturer who has written about privacy and surveillance oversight.

"The use of surveillance by enforcement agencies can be regarded as an exercise of overwhelming state power,” he wrote.

"As the use of surveillance is necessarily secretive and hidden, it creates an imbalance in power relations between the state and the people that it governs. Such a condition of imbalance makes the practice of surveillance vulnerable to abuse or misuse.

"Consequently, enforcement bodies’ power of surveillance need to be subjected to a high degree of control in terms of legal and democratic accountability.”

Beyond privacy concerns, drug-related surveillance also comes with other ethical issues.

Advocates for rights-based drug policies have said that how enforcement agencies decide who to monitor or which location is designated as prime for drug use can often be biased against the poor and minority groups.

It’s a prejudice that is based on the view that PWUDs are immoral, which makes them more likely to have an "antisocial” attitude with the propensity to commit crime.

These views are shaped by the ideology that drives the "war on drugs”, whose proponents thought criminalising drug use would have a "deterring effect” that could dent demand, and therefore supply.

Yet studies, including by various United Nations agencies, have shown such efforts have failed as illicit narcotics continue to be available even in countries that impose the death penalty for drugs offences — which included Malaysia, until recently.

One consequence of a punitive drug policy is what activists describe as the institutionalisation of stigma, which has discouraged PWUDs from seeking treatment because of the attached shame.

Jia Vern Tham, a coordinator with the Asian Anti-Death Penalty Network, said while surveillance practices could be used to do positive things, like more effective care and improved resource allocation, there was no way to ensure that opposite would not occur.

"Unchecked expansion of surveillance practices could undermine PWUDs’ privacy, and exacerbate their criminalisation and barriers to healthcare,” Tham cautioned.

The lack of clarity around what the agency plans to respond to the intelligence also raises questions.

Tham suggested the AADK could use it to detect so-called "hotspots” with the intention to raid, arrest and force PWUDs into its rehabilitation centres. One key performance indicator the agency uses is the decrease in number of PWUDs in these hotspot areas, which critics contend was misguided.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Narcotics (UNODC) said forced admission into state-run rehabilitation centres has had questionable results, and documentation by the United Nations, academic researchers and civil society has added to the existing body of evidence linking compulsory treatment and rehabilitation to human rights violations.

"Any attempt to impose or increase surveillance on PWUDs needs to answer two key questions: First, how well would PWUDs interact with health and social services in an environment of coercion/surveillance?” Tham said.

"Second, how would treatment providers or enforcement authorities navigate the ethical implications of conducting surveillance of PWUDs?

"AADK may argue that surveillance aids the plotting and analysis of current drug addiction trends, but it is imperative that the agency also details the ethical considerations behind their proposal, especially in terms of how it would influence the decision-making process of clients in considering harm reduction services,” Tham added.

Over the years, more local public health experts have called for compulsory treatment to be replaced with a voluntary and community-based treatment.

More community-focused alternatives available

Various expert organisations have said there is strong evidence to show voluntary treatment programmes centred around the community were superior. They are less invasive, facilitate access, increase the likelihood of treatment, are highly focused on social reintegration, and educate the community to reduce stigma, among others.

These contrast to the AADK’s mandatory rehabilitation centres (Puspen), where forced admissions can go up to two years.

AADK said in September "drug addiction” cases have gone up by 27 per cent this year, but it is not clear if the statistic includes all cases of PWUDs or specifically those with formed dependence.

This distinction is important to tailor treatment accordingly. Experts have stressed that not all PWUDs are dependent or deal with substance use disorder, and imposing a one-size-fits-all solution has done more harm than good.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail earlier this year said the government is planning to introduce a "Decriminalisation Bill” with the primary aim being to reduce Malaysia’s prison population.

Details about the planned Bill are scant but Saifuddin suggested that persons who use drugs would no longer be jailed but "diverted” into Puspen centres.

Decriminalisation and harm reduction advocates argue the move would merely "transfer PWUDs from one detention facility to another”, giving rise to different problems.