Devil’s Advocate
COVIDSafe
A
s our way of life continues to be shaped by the spread COVID-19, citizens in many countries have been encouraged to download contact tracing apps, which simplify the complicated manual contact tracing process. Australia’s COVIDSafe app is one such example, however it has been the subject of intense scrutiny to determine whether it might seriously jeopardise users’ personal private information. More than 5.5 million people have signed up to the Australian government’s COVIDSafe app. The app collects information including a user’s name or pseudonym, age, contact number and postcode. This information is formed into an encrypted code which, once Bluetooth is activated, is automatically shared with the apps of other users nearby. The encrypted codes are stored on both devices for 21 days before they are deleted.
Against
Beth Jones
Although it is undeniable that the Federal government’s COVIDSafe app is designed to protect Australians from Covid-19, there are serious privacy concerns relating to the app that cannot simply be dismissed. The app continues to be riddled with inefficiencies and experts have argued that it is effectively useless on iPhones unless it is continuously running in the forefront of the phone. The times during which the app will be most useful and crucial are when people are using public transport or at shopping centres. Unfortunately, these are times when the app will most likely be running in the background, as people will be using their phones to look at social media and check emails. Australia’s COVIDSafe app was modelled on Singapore’s contact tracing app Ed.2 2020
TraceTogether, which also experienced these issues, with users complaining that they were not able to make phone calls whilst the app was functioning. Government Services Minister Robert Stuart even acknowledged that the app might not work very well on iPhones in a press conference announcing the release of the app to the public. Even though the Government knew about the ineffectiveness of the app on iPhones, it still chose to release the app to the public before this issue was resolved. It is arguable that the app was not even necessary at the time that the country was under strict lockdown restrictions. Additionally, the government failed to provide concrete privacy protection to the millions of users of the app. If the app is not even safeguarding the public from widespread infection, then it is certainly not worth the risk that it poses to our privacy. The Health Minister Greg Hunt has repeatedly assured Australians that only state health departments responsible for contact tracing will have access to this information, and law enforcement agencies would not be granted access to this data under any circumstances. However, the legislation does not explicitly prohibit access via warrants or court orders. Perhaps the most concerning feature about the laws regulating the use of information collected by the app, is that the laws were only passed on 14 May, nearly three weeks after the release of the app. When an individual tests positive for COVID-19, the app prompts them to upload the encrypted codes collected by their app onto a central server located on Amazon’s Web Services server in thebrief.muls.org | 11
