The COVID-19 lockdown messaging has been a bit all over the place with some people saying Australia needs to pass three tests before it ends, others saying some places will be open soon, and Scotty telling everyone it’ll be at least four more weeks.
Now it seems like we’re being approached with some sort of deal from the government for freedom: if you want the COVID-19 lockdown to end sooner, help the government out by installing a nifty little coronavirus tracker app they’re developing onto your phones.
The GOAT team talk to The Chaser about their new podcast that coincidentally focuses on ridiculous COVID-19 lockdown happenings like the tracking app on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
The Federal government are working on a COVID-19 tracing app (via ABC News) and have got their fingers crossed that enough Australians will voluntarily sign up for this tracker app in order to be effective.
The idea in a nutshell is that the more people who are monitored through this tracing app, the quicker the response to COVID-19 cases will be, and the sooner lockdown will end as numbers will (theoretically) decrease much faster.
It all sounds pretty good to be true and that’s because it sort of is.
Apparently this COVID-19 tracker app will require at least 40 percent of Australians to voluntarily sign up for it to be effective. When asked (via Gizmodo) whether it’ll be compulsory for everyone to get this app on their phones, Scotty From Marketing sidestepped the question by saying data from the app won’t be used by police to catch people breaking lockdown rules.
“My preference is not to do that, my preference is to give Australians the go of getting it right.
“… I don’t want to be drawn on that [making it mandatory], I want to give Australians the opportunity to get it right. That is my objective, that is my Plan A and I really want Plan A to work.”
Having your movements monitored by the government is a pretty worrying breach of privacy, but that’s just the tip of all the potential problems with this COVID-19 tracker app.
While the government says the app is based on the TraceTogether app used in Singapore, it’s not quite clear just how the technology will work, how it’ll take into account people without smartphones, what sort of data will be taken, whether data will be stored, or how issues regarding privacy protections will be implemented.
Hell, there’s even doubts whether this COVID-19 tracker app will even work as intended.
We’re still a few weeks out before this app is scheduled to be released in Australia so it remains to be seen if monitoring the movements of a good portion of the population will help drastically stop the spread of COVID-19 and accelerate the end of the lockdown rules.
One thing’s for sure, the price of freedom from COVID-19 lockdown is looking pretty damn high and one has to wonder if that’s something 40 percent or so of Australians are willing to pay.
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