Coronavirus Australia: Thirst for freedom drives corona app uptake

Majority of Australians are set to download government’s COVIDsafe app, Newspoll shows.

A picture of the COVID-19-tracing app in action. Picture: Getty Images

A majority of Australians are set to download the government’s coronavirus tracing app, COVIDSafe, with a Newspoll suggesting Scott Morrison will exceed the benchmark for further easing social restrictions.

Amid fears that concerns over privacy may discourage the uptake of the technology, a Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian shows that 54 per cent of Australians are prepared to ­install the app on their phones.

Launching the app on Sunday, the government signalled it would take legislation to parliament when it returned in mid-May to impose a jailable offence for misusing the data. The app will allow health authorities to track and isolate the contacts of people who have been exposed to coronavirus to prevent escalating outbreaks.

“The more people who download this important public health app, the safer they and their family will be, the safer their community will be and the sooner we can safely lift restrictions and get back to business and do the things we love,” the Prime Minister said.

Picture: AAP

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said he expected more than half of Australians to download the app, but would not specify the uptake needed for ­social restrictions to ease, after the government crabwalked away from the Prime Minister’s initial 40 per cent requirement. Governments around the country have dramatically increased testing for the coronavirus to increase confidence that the curve of infection is flattening. Teams have also been set up to quickly crack down on outbreaks and the app will also boost contact tracing as national cabinet examines easing some restrictions.

“Good uptake, in my mind, would be well over half the people and I think we will get it,” Professor Murphy said. “Australians will rise to the challenge because they have risen to the challenge of distancing, they have risen to the challenge of testing.”

The Newspoll shows that while 54 per cent will download the app, 39 per cent of people did not intend to use it. Only 7 per cent said they didn’t know or didn’t have a mobile phone.

Majority support for the app was uniform across all age groups and all party political leanings, with the strongest support evident among 18- to 34-year-olds.

Women, however, were more sceptical and were less likely to download the app (49 per cent) compared with men (59 per cent).

Other countries have failed to achieve high uptakes of tracing apps, reporting uptakes of no more than 25 per cent.

Courts and the police are banned from accessing data from the app for criminal investigations or legal proceedings, as the government moved to create special privacy provisions to allay community concerns.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said people who downloaded the app would be able to use a fake name and could delete its data, which is encrypted, at any time.

“You can use a fake name. That is legally available,” Mr Hunt said in Canberra on Sunday.

“This is about making sure that anybody who has been in contact with somebody diagnosed can be notified to protect them, and we want to make sure that contact is there so a name helps,” he said.

“Obviously it is better, I think, if it is exactly who you are, but above all else we, want to be able to be in contact for the state health officials to be in contact.”

The data will be accessed only by state health authorities if someone using the app has contracted COVID-19 and gives their permission for the information to be unencrypted.

It will be held by state health agencies until the end of the pandemic, when it will then be deleted.

The only details required for the app is a name (which can be fake), phone number, age range and postcode.

Mr Hunt said legislation would be brought to parliament in May that strengthened a new criminal offence, created by regulation, to share or access data that is generated from the app.

“I have already signed into law on behalf of the government a Biosecurity Act and determination, which prevents access and ensures the data has to be kept on an Australian server. It cannot leave the country,” Mr Hunt said.

“It cannot be accessed by anybody other than a state public health official. It cannot be used for any purpose other than the provision of the data for the purpose of finding people with who you have been in close contact, and it is punishable by jail if there is a breach of that.”

He called the safeguards for the app the “strongest ever”.

“Not even a court order can penetrate the law. Not even a court order during the investigation of an alleged crime would be allowed to be used,” Mr Hunt said.

“So to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a set of protections like those which have been put in place under law for this app.”

The chief executive of the ­Cybersecurity Co-operative Research Centre, Rachael Falk, who was involved in the official independent review of the security features of the tracing app, said the CCRC was satisfied with the integrity of the app, given the limited nature of the personal data collected and its intended operation.

“This is our path to recovery,” Ms Falk said. “This is a health app, not a surveillance app. This is about saving lives and getting Australia back to normal.”

The app, which does not track a user’s location, uses the Bluetooth from a phone to lodge a “virtual handshake” with other people who have downloaded the mobile platform. The data of another user registers on the app if people are within 1.5m of each other for 15 minutes.

The details of the virtual handshake are expunged after 21 days.

The nation’s bank bosses yesterday threw their support behind the federal government’s COVID tracing app, saying the technology was important in further suppressing the virus and allowing everyone to return to normal life.

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn said on Sunday he planned to download the app and use it himself.

“The sole purpose of the tracing app will be to contain further transmission of the virus and, in doing so, help Australia get back to work,” Mr Comyn said.

“Once the economy is reopened and people feel safe to resume their lives, the app will have done its job and can be deleted.”