Emergency Services Minister Chris Picton tells public not to use Alert SA app, threatens legal action over glitch that ‘could have cost lives’
AN ALERT app which melted down as fires raged at the weekend will be shut down, as the State Government concedes lives could have been put at risk by a serious technical glitch.
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AN ALERT app which melted down as fires raged at the weekend will be shut down, as the State Government concedes lives could have been put at risk by a serious technical glitch.
The Alert SA app, which has been downloaded by 170,000 people, crashed on Saturday as users sought up-to-date information about bushfire dangers, including a huge blaze at Sherwood, in the state’s South-East.
Emergency Services Minister Chris Picton met with the Melbourne-based developers on Sunday and he is now threatening legal action over the second major failure since October.
He said the public should instead use other sources of emergency information, including a battery-powered radio and the CFS website, to get the latest news on fires and keep themselves safe.
Asked if the app crash could have put lives at risk, Mr Picton said: “Absolutely. Any shortage of being able to provide information to people potentially has those sorts of consequences.
“We will no longer be giving advice to people to use the Alert SA app. We will be in the process of closing that app down and telling people not to use that any more.”
The app costs taxpayers $284,000 per year and was launched in 2015.
The Government said it would move to have the program removed from online app stores and attempt to have a notification included for current users that directs them to reliable sources.
Mr Picton said the contract with developer Ripe Intelligence would be cancelled when it expired in June and the Government would look at developing a replacement app over which it had more control.
Mr Picton said it was not possible to revive the defunct CFS app, which Alert SA replaced, because it ran on old technology not compatible with new systems. The company was selected in part because of its track record with similar apps in Victoria.
He said the Government “would have to see” how much money it could claw back.
“There are issues in terms of what they have promised in the contract, but we’re right at the end of the contract, so how far back you could go ... we’ll have to get advice on,” Mr Picton said.
“We will have to look at what the costs of having a new app developed are. “What we are seeking is that we have much more control and in-house management.”
He said a new app may narrow its focus to reliable information on fires and state emergency services operations, rather than including extras on power outages and shark sightings.