While the government enforces strict measures against external data tracking by Waze, it faces critical accountability gaps and privacy vulnerabilities within its own centralized public sector data ecosystem.
The implementation of the Data Sharing Act 2025 (Act 864) has centralised public sector data exchange, but it has simultaneously triggered intense debate over unaddressed accountability gaps and data privacy.
The framework leaves major public sector vulnerabilities unresolved.
The single biggest point of contention is that the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA) explicitly exempts the federal and state governments from its scope.
While citizens can sue private corporations for mishandling their personal data, they have no statutory privacy rights or direct legal recourse if a government agency leaks their information.
The Data Sharing Act applies strictly to federal public sector agencies and federal statutory bodies.
It does not legally bind state governments or local authorities.
Critical public safety, healthcare, housing, and infrastructure data are collected on the ground by municipal councils and state-level entities.
By leaving them out of the mandatory framework, the government has created a fragmented system where data flows easily at the top federal level, but hits a wall at local administrative borders.
Sharing remains an internal executive privilege rather than a transparent public standard.
Given Malaysia’s history of massive public sector data leaks (such as the MyIdentity, PERKESO, and Prasarana breaches), the public remains deeply skeptical.
The World Bank in a report recently said the new law has failed to transform the civil service's deeply ingrained culture of bureaucratic secrecy as it excludes all information protected under the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA) and other rigid statutory secrecy provisions.
Because the legislation structurally allows rather than mandates data exchange, risk-averse or protective ministries simply default to withholding data under the guise of the OSA.
If data sovereignty is the true driver behind banning Waze, the government must hold its internal systems to the same rigorous benchmark.
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