#CovidUnsafe Megathread

PLAGUED by technical issues, the Morrison Government’s CovidSafe App has cost taxpayers as much as $70-80 million yet has only made 17 useful case IDs.

Marketed as the safe way for Australians to get back to normal, the app promised the world, cost a fortune and did almost nothing.

Media jumped on board helping to over-sell the broken promises of the CovidSafe app, which was built using code ripped from Singapore’s TraceTogether app.

The app may have given Australians a false sense of security while it was bugging out bluetooth and eating away smartphone batteries around the country.

For the App to work, you need to be within 1.5 metres of someone, uninterrupted, for 15 minutes. In many cases the app will need to be open and on the screen on both phones to work correctly.

7 million Australians have installed the app. However, the Morrison Government will not disclose how many active users the app has, or how many have since deleted it.

The app was expected to cost $2M, however development and running costs have blown out by millions. One company working on the app has been linked via family ties to the Liberal Party. https://twitter.com/i/status/1285128875920494593

Victorian contact tracers accessed app data 400 times but the app did not ID any cases that manual contact tracing had not already identified. The app was not able to play any role in preventing Victoria’s second wave.

Regardless, the app was marketed in Victoria as the key to beating COVID-19. As cases mounted and restrictions increased, ads informed Victorians that the app was the way to get back out there safely.

Strangely, the app has gained thousands of 5 star reviews in the App Store since August in a surge of recent glowing reviews, despite the app’s well-known failures.

The tech the app is built on is not supported by Apple or Google due to privacy and performance issues. Both tech giants provided secure and private contact tracing platforms in May which other countries have launched, but not Australia.

The app depends on user trust and honesty. Users who test positive are required to report their diagnosis into the app in a timely manner.

Trust has been considered to be a major reason why Australians would be hesitant to download or use the app. If Australians trusted the Morrison Government more, it’s likely more people would use it.

The app has also been criticised for its limited support for languages other than English and federal CovidSafe messaging has relied on Google Translate.

Early on, the government was reluctant to release source code, was unclear about privacy protections and was unable to convince many Australians about the app’s safety. ‘Trust us’ seemed to be the message.

Recently Stuart Robert has described the CovidSafe App as the best contact tracing app on the market. This claim is far from the truth.

The app, in its current form, is clearly a failure. So why is the Morrison Government continuing to push it as our ticket out of here? How much more of your money will be spent on marketing this dud? Is it safe to tell us this app works?

States are now implementing their own purpose-built QR code app solutions to assist with contact tracing efforts. The Morrison government has had 7 months to fix the CovidSafe app but has not yet done so. The state solutions are expected to be more successful.

Credit: @DrCrazyThoughts