Telkom Group CEO Sipho Maseko joins TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod for a discussion on the telecommunications operator's new track-and-trace technology solution designed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa.

Telkom has developed the track-and-trace solution in partnership with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the CSIR to identify people who may have contracted Covid-19.

The system collates multiple data sources such as GIS data to track an infected person’s exposure and who they may have unknowingly exposed to the virus to.

This reduces the current reliance on the patient’s own recollections of who they may have exposed unknowingly and enables the CSIR to contact people who were in the same proximity as the patient.

In certain communities, the department of health will be using trackers to trace primary contacts and ensure testing for secondary contacts.

Telkom has partnered with Samsung to distribute 1 500 handsets to trackers across the country. The system will integrate the information collected by the trackers.

In the podcast, Maseko discusses the privacy implications of the track-and-trace system and why he believes it is not only necessary to combat Covid-19 but also conforms with legislation governing people's privacy.

He also talks about how the lockdown is affecting Telkom's day-to-day operations and the impact its hand on its restructuring and retrenchments programme.