The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) today indicated its strong support for the Government’s contact tracing app, designed to digitally alert Australians of nearby COVID-19 infections.
As the peak industry body for innovation technology in Australia, the AIIA was given an exclusive briefing today by the Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert MP, CEO of the Digital Transformation Agency and head of Australian Cyber Security Centre on the technology behind the tracing app and the cyber security protections built into it.
Commenting on the detailed briefing of the app, AIIA CEO, Ron Gauci said: “AIIA thanks Minister Robert, Mr Brugeaud and Ms Noble for their detailed briefings and assurances provided to members today.
“Cyber security and online personal privacy is of paramount importance to all Australians and so is the health and safety of its citizens. 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, the AIIA therefore supports the government tracing app and strongly recommends that 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. This data will be able to give the government more confidence in considering relaxing of quarantine measures,” Mr Gauci said.
The government tracing app is available to download for free on the app stores.
Using Bluetooth, 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 – thereafter, the app will alert all users that the infectee had interacted with in the past 14 days to self-isolate and test for COVID-19.
Speaking of the digital advancement of medical containment, Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, Deloitte Australia, and Chair of the AIIA Robert Hillard said: “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.”
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