By LAURIE PATTON | 4 May 2020
PREFACE: It’s worth noting that Victoria is so far the only state known to have actually used the COVIDSafe app. It has now had 21 people who’ve tested positive let its health department download their data yet this didn’t identify anyone they didn’t already know about through existing manual contact tracing methods. Presumably the app missed numerous people with whom they must have come into contact. Time to fix it or flick it. Millions of Australians are out and about in the false belief that having downloaded the app they are somehow safer because that’s what the Government told them.
COVIDSafe is yet another flawed technology project from the Australian government. A failure to sufficiently consult with IT experts and privacy lawyers has significantly reduced public confidence, leading to a limited take-up that significantly reduces any potential benefit of the scheme.
People are wondering about the security of their personal and private information. The Attorney-General’s department declined to give a Senate hearing a guarantee that their legislation would override the US Cloud Act. This is important given that the data is stored with Amazon.
Continue reading “Badly designed. Badly marketed. The virus that infected the Australian government”