Australia’s COVIDSafe app still faces questions from IT experts keen to see source code
Australia’s coronavirus-tracing app has been downloaded more than a million times. But cybersecurity experts say they still have questions and want to see the source code.
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Australia’s coronavirus-tracing app is still facing questions from computer and privacy experts after the Government revealed it would not release the app’s source code for “weeks,” admitted it could struggle to work on Apple iPhones, and after Germany ditched a similar app to switch to a model designed by Apple and Google.
But, despite the concerns, Australians have embraced the COVIDSafe app so far, downloading it 1.89 million times within 24 hours of its launch and making it the top free download in Australian app stores.
The app, which began accepting registrations from Australians on Sunday night, uses encrypted Bluetooth communications between smartphones to identify when people have been within 1.5m of another user for 15 minutes.
If an app user tests positive to COVID-19, they can upload that information to a central database where it can be accessed by state health officials to warn them of the close contact.
But the COVIDSafe app has come under intense scrutiny, and IT experts criticised the Government yesterday for failing to release the app’s source code to check for problems and for failing to test it widely before its launch.
A Health Department spokeswoman said the code would be released to the public “in the coming weeks, subject to final advice from cybersecurity agencies”.
But University of Melbourne computing and information systems lecturer Dr Suelette Dreyfus said the Government had missed an opportunity to use Australia’s “technical community” who were keen to help create the best coronavirus-tracing app possible.
“There are dozens of deep experts, engineers, privacy experts, technical and legal experts who want to contribute to this but the Government has hand-picked a couple of entities and that’s unfortunate. There’s a wonderful resource of people who wants to help Australia,” she said.
“There are still questions about usability, privacy and functionality and that’s why you should open-source it and provide documentation without waiting two weeks.”
Dr Dreyfus said questions still lingered about whether it would work effectively on Apple iPhones, for example, a problem also raised by University of Wollongong engineering and information professor Katina Michael who said the app could time-out on iPhones when other apps were in use or could prove to be a significant battery drain.
“I am very concerned that the concept was tested by the app was not tested in the field in real time with different handset types,” she said. “Australia’s COVIDSafe app doesn't seem to be able to run in the background, rather it needs to be open and active.”
Similar issues have hit the development of a coronavirus-tracing app in Germany, with the country revealing it would ditch plans to create an app like the one used in Australia and replace it with a decentralised model proposed by Apple and Google and increasingly adopted in other European countries.
Chancellery Minister Helge Braun and Health Minister Jens Spahn announced the country’s new technology on the weekend after failing to get Apple to change its approach. The first rung of the companies’ software is expected to be released shortly.
Australia’s COVIDSafe app did win support from the Australian Information Industry Association yesterday, however, and Swinburne University social media major director Dr Belinda Barnet who said the Government’s approach to data ethics in this app had “changed her mind” about supporting its use.
The Government’s app included protections for informed consent, data sharing and deletion, she said, though they still had to be introduced to the parliament in addition to being added to the Biosecurity Act.
“They’ve addressed the main privacy concerns in this app but they still need to pass legislative protections in parliament when it returns in May,” she said.
“I’ll be watching that very carefully because they need to deliver that as they promised.”