Thread by @abc730

The government is urging people to download the #COVIDSafe app. This week parliament is debating new laws to safeguard the app and any personal information it collects. But there are still some concerns over how effective it will be. #abc730 @FarrellPF #Covid19Aus

“The app’s really there for one purpose and that purpose is to assist the disease detectives to find the evidence and put together what might be a cluster of cases.” Deputy CMO Paul Kelly. #abc730 #Covid19Aus #COVIDSafe

Health officials have acknowledged the #COVIDSafe app doesn’t work well on iPhones. “There are some issues if you have other apps open and so forth and Apple themselves are working through that.” Deputy CMO Paul Kelly. #abc730 #Covid19Aus

“We're going to see a lot of attacks because this is going to be software that's running on every single phone, every single person's phone. And if that's not a honeypot for anyone, I don't know what is.” Ashkan Soltani, technology researcher. #abc730 #COVIDSafe

“The bill creates a fairly open-ended storage of that data, in that it will be kept until essentially the end of the pandemic, the end of the usefulness. But it's by no means clear that that retention is necessary for contact tracing.” Katherine Kemp, @UNSW #abc730 #COVIDSafe

“It's a promise we've made to the Australian people about the privacy & security elements of the app. It's for contacting tracing by disease detectives in state & territory health departments and they are the only people that can use it.” Deputy CMO Paul Kelly. #abc730 #COVIDSafe