KUALA LUMPUR: As Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim meets his Cabinet ministers tomorrow morning, high on the agenda should be the TuJu fiasco and, more importantly, the security concerns facing Malaysia.
While Malaysians have had a field day ridiculing TuJu – the locally developed navigation application touted by Anwar as an alternative to the widely used Waze – an MP’s warning about increased foreign attention on the country deserves greater scrutiny.
In a Facebook posting on Oct 21, Bangi MP Syahredzan Johan revealed that several MPs from both sides of the political divide had been briefed on national security issues affecting Malaysia.
Syahredzan did not go into the specifics of the meeting but said there had been increased foreign attention on Malaysia, “and not just from benevolent or friendly parties”.
Who are these unfriendly parties? Could the concerns over Waze be linked to a possible data breach? Or is there something more sinister that threatens the country’s sovereignty?
On Feb 12, 2025, cybersecurity company ClearPhish reported that a threat actor had claimed to be selling a dataset containing 7,687,248 Waze user records, raising serious privacy concerns.
The dataset allegedly included usernames, unique identifiers and real-time GPS locations, potentially exposing users’ movements if the claims were verified.
But that report was published more than a year ago. The nature of any current threat facing Waze users remains unclear.
It is also uncertain whether Cabinet ministers were briefed on the security concerns that led to the ban on civil servants using Waze while on duty.
Also on the minds of Malaysians is who advised Anwar to recommend TuJu and how the application would cope with a sudden surge in users.
Malaysians deserve to know what prompted the announcement.
Or was the decision based purely on legal considerations? Malaysia has no diplomatic ties with Israel, where Waze is headquartered, potentially creating complications should a dispute involving the application arise.
Waze evolved from FreeMap Israel and was acquired by tech giant Google in 2013 for US$1.15 billion. Its headquarters remain in Israel. However, Waze is not the only technology platform with global offices in Tel Aviv. Popular website builder Wix.com and work management platform Monday.com also have offices there.
Anwar had cited security concerns over information and data on citizens’ movements, saying Waze was subject to Israeli laws. However, he provided no further elaboration or evidence. The matter was raised in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday, but Anwar did not provide answers.
TuJu, meanwhile, was developed by the Malaysian Highway Authority and Prosignal Consortium Sdn Bhd. Users generally gave it the thumbs down, saying it was a poor alternative to Waze and Google Maps. This raised questions about whether decision-makers had tested the application or understood how such tools worked, given that they are chauffeured around daily.
A day later, TuJu went offline, saying it was “undergoing system improvements to provide a better travel experience”.
The episode echoed a similar situation in July, when Anwar promoted PMX AI, which allowed Malaysians to chat with his AI avatar via WhatsApp. A day later, the service went offline and remains unavailable.
Anwar’s announcement also came at a peculiar time.
Governments worldwide were scrambling to protect their systems after developers of the PHP programming language released urgent fixes for vulnerabilities that had remained undetected for years before being uncovered with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi urged public and private organisations to apply emergency security patches or take websites offline. The Netherlands, France, Denmark, United Kingdom and Finland also took government websites offline, while South Korea raised its cyber threat level.
These developments are not necessarily connected to Waze, but they underline the importance of taking cybersecurity threats seriously.
Yet in Malaysia, the focus has been on Waze and TuJu.
Anwar has spoken extensively about technology, particularly artificial intelligence, as Putrajaya pursues its goal of becoming an AI Nation by 2030. But the PMX AI and TuJu episodes, both endorsed by the prime minister, raise questions about Malaysia’s ability to develop reliable technology rather than remain a mere user of it.
Malaysia needs to get its priorities right and address genuine cyber threats. Anwar, the Prime Minister’s Department and the National Cyber Security Committee should explain why Malaysians are being urged to ditch Waze and what evidence supports the decision.
Laying the cards on the table would allow Malaysians to make informed decisions about matters affecting their privacy and data. The people should also be given reason to trust that a locally developed platform is a reliable alternative.
