Its deputy managing director, Zurkarnain Yasin, said the data is fully anonymised and only used in aggregate to help provide macro-level insights for national development planning.
He said the project, still in its early stages, has received formal recognition from the United Nations as a key big data source to improve the quality, accuracy and timeliness of official statistics.
“This global initiative reflects the urgent need to go beyond traditional statistical methods and adopt innovative data solutions to better understand and address societal challenges,” he said in a statement to FMT.
The UN has also set up a special task force involving over 50 countries and organisations, including Malaysia, to explore the use of mobile data for development.
Other members include Japan, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
Zurkarnain said the statistics department, which leads the project, will hold briefings with stakeholders soon.
His comments came in response to concerns raised by MCA president Wee Ka Siong, who questioned whether the government’s directive for telecommunication companies to share user data could violate privacy and lead to potential abuse.
Some parties have gone further, accusing the government of engaging in large-scale “spying” on citizens through the mobile phone data project.
Zurkarnain dismissed these claims as baseless, saying such narratives could mislead the public and undermine efforts to develop more reliable sources of national data.
“More precise official data allows for stronger public policy planning and better service delivery,” he said.
He also clarified that the data collected does not include any personal or identifiable information, with no mechanism for opting in or out, as the data is drawn from standard mobile network operations.
At the technical level, Zurkarnain said the data is automatically generated when a mobile device interacts with transmission towers.
He said this data is then processed and anonymised at the telco level before being submitted to the statistics department and MCMC.
“There is no transfer of raw data or user information outside the premises of mobile network operators,” he added.