Government launches contact tracing app to alert Australians of nearby COVID-19 infections
The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has thrown its support behind the Australian Government’s recent launch of a COVID-19 Tracing App to the public.
Download of the App is voluntary and was designed to digitally alert Australians of nearby COVID-19 infections.
The AIIA was given a recent briefing of the App by Stuart Robert Minister for Government Services, Randall Brugeaud CEO of the Digital Transformation Agency, and Abi Bradshaw head of Australian Cyber Security Centre, and others, on the technology behind the tracing app and the cyber security protections built into it.
Ron Gauci CEO at AIIA said there had been many concerns from the public about the security of the App.
“Cyber security and online personal privacy is paramount to all Australians and so is the health and safety of its citizens,” he said. “Based on this detailed briefing and understanding that the App does not track your geo-location and that personal data and cyber security concerns have been designed into the app and through government regulations.
According to Gauci the AIIA therefore supports the government tracing app and strongly recommended all Australians download it.
“By encouraging all Australians to engage with the app, we can support state health contact tracing teams to help identify community clusters and secondary spread of the COVID-19 now we have flattened the curve,” he said.
“This data will be able to give the government more confidence in considering relaxing of quarantine measures.”
The App interacts with other app users within a certain distance, sending key codes anonymously.
When users test positive for COVID-19, they update their status on the app and would alert all users who the infected had interactive with, in the past 14 days, to self-isolate and test for COVID-19.
Speaking of the digital advancement of medical containment Robert Hillard chief strategy and innovation officer at Deloitte Australia and AIIA chair also supports the App.
“In the absence of a medical vaccine, you could think about contact tracing as a digital vaccine with our contact data being the virtual antibodies,” he said.
