Australian COVIDSafe app attracts foreign interest

New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Peru, and some US states have approached the government about the COVIDSafe app.

The Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app.

New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Peru, and some US states have approached the federal government about its COVIDSafe app used for contact tracing.

The app uses Bluetooth wireless to record the encrypted IDs of other app users nearby. Should a user test positive, health workers can decipher the phone’s data to get contact details of others possibly exposed to the virus and offer them a test.

The Federal Government yesterday said the app had notched up six million downloads, equivalent to almost a quarter of the Australian population.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the COVIDSafe app was playing a significant role in Australia’s health response to the pandemic.

“Australia continues to be a world leader in testing, tracing, and containing the coronavirus and I would encourage all Australians to contribute to that effort and download the COVIDSafe app today,” Mr Hunt said.

“They (state health workers) will only have access to contact information for those people you may have come in close contact with — that is, 1.5m or less for a duration of 15 minutes or more.”

A Department of Health spokesman said other countries had shown interest in the design approach and policy framework of the app which centred around supporting public health officials. They also wanted to know how it handled privacy.

The spokesman said that while New Zealand was taking a different approach to contact tracing now, it was looking to develop something like COVIDSafe in future.

Canada was interested in how the federal government and states had co-operated to implement an app, while the UK had sought a detailed conversation about how it worked.

The discussions come as more countries examine alternative ways to enhance their contact tracing capability with smartphone technology.

The government said that in Victoria, the app had uncovered a contact of an infected person who had not been identified through normal contact tracing. That person was in quarantine.

The public take-up of COVIDSafe remains an issue. The government wants a 40 per cent take-up; about four million more users would be needed to reach 0 million downloads, although the goal may have shifted to 40 per cent coverage of adult phone users.

“The Chief Medical Officer made the point that there are about 18 million Australians over the age of 18 and 83 per cent have a mobile device,” Government Services Minister Stuart Robert said last week. “So of 16 million, 40 per cent is around 6.2 million.”

Mr Robert yesterday said the app had been downloaded faster than any other Australian Government app and has consistently remained the top free app in the Australian app stores. “Millions of Australians are doing their bit as part of our health response,” he said.

While the app is actively collecting data, it was reported last week that not all states were using that data. NSW was having technical issues.

There has been little virus transmission in the community to thoroughly trial the app. The acid test will be when virus outbreaks occur as states exit lockdowns.

The app still faces questions about the security of data, privacy and encryption, but is supported by many Australians who hope it helps human contact tracers alleviate the spread of the virus.

There’s also concern that old iPhones and Android handsets cannot run it, and that people from non-English speaking backgrounds may not install it.

The government is more confident about the app running correctly on Apple iPhones either in the foreground or background. Government officers have been meeting with Apple to deal with the Bluetooth issues around COVIDSafe.

Last week, Department of Health Chief Information Officer, Daniel Keys, said the app on iPhones was “working as designed”.

Mr Hunt met with Apple on Thursday to discuss the app and Apple’s response to the pandemic. Apple and Google have built their own contact tracing capability and are making it available internationally.

They say 22 countries and several US states have shown interest in their system.

The Australian Government is sticking with COVIDSafe which is based on the TraceTogether app used in Singapore, rather than adopt the Apple-Google approach in full.