OPINION | Weaning Malaysians Off Waze: Good Luck with that PMX

Weaning Malaysians Off Waze: Good Luck With that PMX

By Mihar Dias October 2026

There are some habits that are difficult to break. Smoking, overeating, procrastinating, falling asleep during long-winded speeches and, apparently, using Waze while driving in Malaysia.

The government may have finally discovered that telling Malaysians to stop using Waze is considerably easier than getting them to do so.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has advised Malaysians to abandon Waze, the popular navigation application with Israeli origins, citing concerns about data security and national sovereignty. Civil servants have already been prohibited from using it, even during their personal time. The public has also been encouraged to switch to a homegrown alternative called TuJu. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/waze-tuju-navigation-app-anwar-ibrahim-malaysia-6502896?utm_source=chatgpt.com

A noble objective, perhaps. But there is one little problem. Malaysians have become rather attached to Waze.

It is not just another application sitting on our smartphones. For millions of motorists, Waze has become an indispensable travelling companion. It tells us where to go, where not to go, where the police are hiding, where accidents have happened, where traffic is crawling and, occasionally, where we can find a shortcut that takes us through somebody's kampung.

Some motorists probably know the voice of Waze better than they know their spouses.

Imagine the conversation.

“Where are you?”

“I'm on my way.”

“Where exactly?”

“Don't ask me. Waze is telling me.”

After years of this relationship, expecting motorists to suddenly abandon Waze is like asking them to divorce a spouse who has been faithfully guiding them through Federal Highway traffic for the last decade.

And then along came TuJu.

According to a Channel NewsAsia report, one Malaysian taxi driver gave TuJu a try, only to uninstall it less than 24 hours later and return to Waze. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/waze-tuju-navigation-app-anwar-ibrahim-malaysia-6502896?utm_source=chatgpt.com

He complained that many destinations were missing and some directions simply did not make sense.

Another automotive industry observer reportedly found that TuJu could not even locate Putrajaya.

Now, that is rather unfortunate. If a Malaysian navigation application cannot find Putrajaya, one wonders whether it needs navigation assistance itself.

Perhaps the application was confused about which Putrajaya to locate. The administrative capital, or the Putrajaya where decisions about navigation applications are being made?

To be fair, the Malaysian Highway Authority has explained that TuJu was originally developed to improve services along tolled highways, not to compete directly with Waze across every road in the country. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/waze-tuju-navigation-app-anwar-ibrahim-malaysia-6502896?utm_source=chatgpt.com

That is an important distinction. But it also raises an obvious question: if TuJu is not yet a full-fledged alternative to Waze, why are motorists being encouraged to make the switch before the replacement is ready?

It is rather like asking someone to exchange a fully equipped Mercedes for a bicycle and assuring him that the bicycle will eventually come with an engine.

Meanwhile, Waze has spent years accumulating the sort of information that motorists actually need. Its users contribute traffic reports, accidents, road closures, police sightings and alternative routes. The application learns from the collective experiences of millions of people.

It is community intelligence in action.

TuJu may eventually become a worthy competitor. But it cannot acquire a decade of accumulated road intelligence simply by being Malaysian, wearing a local identity card and receiving patriotic encouragement.

Technology does not improve because we tell people it should.

And there is another amusing dimension to this whole affair.

Malaysian motorists are expected to abandon an application because of concerns about who might be collecting their location data. Fair enough. National security is not something to be taken lightly.

But how many other applications on our phones are collecting information about us? Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, online shopping platforms, ride-hailing applications and countless others.

Do we intend to conduct a national audit of every application on every smartphone?

If foreign ownership or jurisdiction is the determining factor, perhaps we should examine all our digital dependencies with the same enthusiasm. Otherwise, we risk giving the impression that national security becomes particularly urgent only when somebody happens to discover the nationality of an application's developer.

The issue deserves a serious, consistent and evidence-based approach. Waze has rejected allegations that it collects sensitive government information or permits the exploitation of users' personal data. That does not mean its security should be taken for granted. It means the concerns should be properly examined rather than relying entirely on assumptions.

But let us return to the ordinary Malaysian motorist.

He has a meeting in Petaling Jaya at 9am. He is already late, the Federal Highway is congested, his petrol is running low and his wife has just called to ask why he has not arrived.

He opens TuJu.

“Destination not found.”

He tries again.

“Route unavailable.”

He looks at the screen, looks at the traffic and then looks at his watch.

At this point, patriotism is likely to take a back seat to survival.

He switches back to Waze.

After all, he has a family to feed, a boss to answer to and a meeting to attend. He cannot afford to become a national sacrifice simply because his navigation application is still undergoing development.

There is a lesson here for those who believe that changing public behaviour is simply a matter of issuing instructions.

People do not abandon something that works merely because somebody tells them there is a better alternative. They abandon it when the alternative demonstrably works better, or at least equally well.

The government should encourage the development of Malaysian technology. Absolutely. We should be proud of homegrown innovation and invest in our ability to protect our own data.

But pride cannot substitute for performance.

Build an application that can find every destination, predict traffic accurately, identify accidents, provide reliable alternative routes and offer the convenience motorists have come to expect. Then invite Malaysians to try it.

They might even switch voluntarily.

Until then, telling Malaysians to stop using Waze is rather like telling them to stop complaining about traffic jams while leaving them sitting in one.

Perhaps the government should consider another innovative idea.

Instead of trying to wean Malaysians off Waze, why not make TuJu so good that they no longer need Waze?

Now, that would be a navigation breakthrough worth celebrating.

And if TuJu still cannot find Putrajaya, perhaps the first destination it should locate is its own development team.

Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!

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