Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues to encourage Australians to use the government’s forthcoming COVID-19 contact tracing app. While he and the relevant ministers are doing their best to reassure us that our privacy will be preserved, it seems there’s still a lot of mistrust out there.
Much of the concern today centred around the fact that Amazon Web Services will host the app’s back end, that it’s American company, and that our data would go offshore. It won’t. But that said, we still haven’t seen the app itself, nor the enabling legislation, nor the operating protocols. And the government has already had to slap down a request from law enforcement to get at the data.
I spoke about the issues in depth last week, but to update the situation I was on ABC Adelaide with Jules Schiller this afternoon.
We were also joined by Dr John Coyne from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). He recently wrote Should I download the coronavirus tracing app? Here’s how to decide.
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