Cops, spies and all non-health agencies to be banned FOREVER from accessing coronavirus tracing app data in the hope of convincing 40% of Aussies to sign up
- The app will record the Bluetooth connections a phone makes with others
- Privacy concerns have been raised, including fears police will access the app
- The federal government today said it would ban access to police and agencies
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
The federal government will ban police and intelligence agents from accessing personal data collected by a new coronavirus tracing app, as it tries to persuade Australians to sign up.
The app, due to be rolled out next week, will record the Bluetooth connections a phone makes with others to identify someone's contacts if they catch the virus.
Huge privacy concerns have been raised, including the idea that police could use the app the work out where a suspect has been and who they have been near.
Police confront a beachgoer on Sydney's Balmoral beach on 17 April
Attorney General Christian Porter today confirmed the government will ban police from accessing the app's data. Pictured: Police at Bondi Beach
But Attorney General Christian Porter today confirmed the government will ban police from accessing the app's data.
This could be done by amending national security legislation to exclude the app from data access laws designed to help police catch terrorists and paedophiles.
In a statement provided to Daily Mail Australia, Mr Porter said: 'Law enforcement agencies will not be provided access to information collected via the app.
'Specific regulatory action will be taken to prevent such access for law enforcement agencies at both the Commonwealth and state/territory level.
'Further details of this aspect of the app will provided when it is officially launched. However, the government has already made the decision not to make any information collected by the app available for other purposes, including law enforcement investigations.
The federal government will ban police and intelligence agencies from accessing information on the new coronavirus contact tracing app. Pictured: Police at the Ruby Princess ship
Singapore is using the TraceTogether app (pictured) to help track the spread of the disease. Australia has been given the code to develop the surveillance software
'This action is being taken to assure Australians that the app will only be used for the purpose intended – to help keep Australians safe. It will be a vital tool in identifying close contacts of people who contract the coronavirus and so help limit the spread of the virus.'
Prime Minister Scott Morrison today confirmed that Commonwealth government will not have access to the data.
He said: 'The information that is collected from that app goes into a national data store that is fully encrypted and the Commonwealth government has no access whatsoever to the information into that data store. None. Zero. Zip. Nothing.'
Earlier this week government Services Minister Stuart Robert said the app will not collect data on a person's location.
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He said: 'All it will tell me is that you and I were in, for 15 minutes or more, 1.5 metres in proximity to each other.
'It won't tell us where, because that's irrelevant, or what you're doing. We don't care where you are or what you're doing.'
Mr Robert explained that the data would stay on someone's phone and would only be sent to health officials if they tested positive for coronavirus.
Users of the TraceTogether app (pictured), which is now being developed in Australia, uses Bluetooth technology to track people
The app, due to be rolled out next week, will record the Bluetooth connections a phone makes with others to identify someone's contacts if they catch the virus. Pictured: Mock-up photo
The Attorney general's announcement came after campaigners told Daily Mail Australia that privacy concerns must be addressed.
The Australian Council for Civil Liberties President Terry O'Gorman said: 'The only way that people are going to be prepared to take up the app is if there is 100 per cent, legislated guarantee that no one, other than the health agencies for the purposes of tracing, can get access to that material under any circumstances whatsoever.'
The government has also commissioned an independent privacy assessment in a bid to soothe concerns.
'We are going to have protections for the privacy and security information like nothing that there has ever been,' Mr Porter said.
The app, modelled on the TraceTogether being used in Singapore, promises to speed up tracing to defeat the pandemic faster and lift restrictions.
For the scheme to be efficient, Australian health authorities estimate it would need to be used by 40 per cent of the population.
In Singapore, only 20 per cent of the population has adopted TraceTogether.
