The COVIDSafe app was introduced during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020 by the Morrison government with hopes it could contact trace close contacts.
In April 2020, former prime minister Scott Morrison described the app as “Australia’s ticket to a COVIDSafe Australia”.
However, after the app launched concerns were raised about its privacy, security and effectiveness.
Butler claims the app has cost taxpayers more than $21 million while it lay unused for the better part of two years.
“This failed app cost taxpayers more than $10 million in developing the app, a further $7 million on advertising and marketing, $2.1 million on upkeep and more than $2 million on staff,” Butler said.
“The failed app was a colossal waste of more than $21 million of taxpayer’s money.”
Not only did it cost taxpayers a significant amount over its two-year duration, but Butler also claimed the app failed to do what it was intended to – identify COVID-19 cases and close contacts.
“Since it was launched in April 2020 only two positive COVID-19 cases were identified through the app, which were not found by manual contact tracers,” Butler said.
“The app only identified 17 close contacts that hadn’t already been identified through manual contact tracing.”
Now that the app has been scrapped the health department will no longer collect data from it and it will be removed from app stores.
“The Department is working to delete all COVIDSafe app data as soon as possible, and no COVIDSafe app data will be retained,” the statement said.
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