The federal government’s COVIDSafe app has been abandoned just over two years after its launch.
But the $21 million platform, designed to track close contacts of people who tested positive for COVID, ran into problems early on.
What was COVIDSafe?
When COVIDSafe was launched in late April 2020, it was touted as a critical part of the government’s plan to reopen the economy.
The app relied on a bluetooth signal that was transmitted at regular intervals to contact other nearby users.
If a person tested positive for COVID-19, state and territory authorities could request access to phone records to find out who else might have been infected.
But the lower the number of people actively using it, the less effective it was, and it wasn’t guaranteed to work for those who did.
So did COVIDSafe work?
When it was launched, Australians were told they didn’t have to do anything special for COVIDSafe to work.
But government testing at the time showed that when it went live, COVIDSafe only worked effectively about a quarter of the time or less on jailbroken iPhones.
Communications between locked Androids and iPhones were also poor, although this improved later.
According to experts, the app’s effectiveness was hampered by bugs that had the potential to limit its core function, especially at large events.
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It also took until late 2021 to update COVIDSafe to track the more infectious Delta variant.
Months earlier, experts had warned that the app’s 15-minute exposure window (the time period used to define a close contact) was “highly useless” for tracking the most transmissible variant.
In December 2021, Mark Butler, who was then the shadow health minister, called for it to be ruled out after it was revealed he had only identified two close contacts nationally in six months.
Mr Butler is now the health minister, and figures released by his office on Wednesday show that only 17 close contacts who had gone undetected by manual contact tracers were identified in more than two years.
During its lifetime, the app only recorded two unique cases of COVID.
Has anyone used COVIDSafe?
At its launch, the government said it would need 40 per cent of Australians (10 million people) to use COVIDSafe for it to be a success.
But that number has rarely been mentioned since.
At the time of its deactivation, there were 7.9 million records, according to Butler, who called it a “failed application.”
The vast majority of registrations – more than 6 million – were in the first few weeks.
But the app relied on active users and people consenting to using positive test results to function.
The app cost $21 million, but only detected two unique cases of COVID. (ABC News: Emma Machan)
Fewer than 800 users consented to having their data collected, according to Butler’s office.
In September 2021, when cases of COVID increased in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, the ABC revealed that the app had not discovered any close contacts in these outbreaks.
In fact, the ACT never used the app’s data, choosing instead to rely on its own contact trackers.
How much did taxpayers pay for COVIDSafe?
The previous federal government signed contracts worth almost $10 million to work on the app until the end of 2021.
It refused to join Apple and Google’s joint contract tracking system, which was adopted by more than 50 jurisdictions around the world.
The total cost of the Australian app, which had a monthly operating price of $100,000, now stands at $21 million.
Of that, $10 million went into app development, another $7 million into advertising and marketing, $2.1 million into maintenance, and over $2 million into staff.
what happens now
Users are now prompted to uninstall COVIDSafe.
Doing so will delete all your data, according to a message in the app.
The Department of Health will no longer collect personal data, and data collected through the app to date will be deleted as soon as possible, Butler said.
The app will be formally deactivated on August 16.