The federal government is working with Apple and Google on a new coronavirus surveillance tool, amid warnings that if it moves ahead of the tech giants it risks its version being useless.
Australian officials are pushing ahead with an app based on the TraceTogether software being used in Singapore to find people who were in close contact with someone with coronavirus.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the new app has a single job: to help public health officers get in touch with those who may have been exposed to the virus.
"We have no interest in it doing any other job. There is no geolocation. There is no tracking of people's movements. None of that is true," he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
It would record the Bluetooth connections a phone makes with others, with the user giving the data to state health authorities if they caught the virus.
But app developer Quentin Zervaas says the government should hold off for a couple more weeks while the tech giants finish work to ensure iPhones and Android devices can do this kind of tracing.
Otherwise, it risks losing public confidence if things go wrong.
"I don't know why they think they can implement a better solution than the platform manufacturers, especially when the track record of the government isn't great," he told AAP.
He doesn't believe the government app will work on iPhones the way ministers and health officials have said, given the limitations Apple places on Bluetooth usage.
Similar issues have led to usage rates in Singapore of below 20 per cent.
If the Bluetooth issues were not a problem, Mr Zervaas says Apple and Google wouldn't have come together for an unprecedented partnership to work on a new framework to allow tracing apps.
"They know their system isn't designed and their devices aren't designed to be basically every device pinging every other device on an ongoing basis," he said.
Health Department Acting Secretary Caroline Edwards said there had been improvements made to the way the app runs compared with the Singapore version.
"We understand, working with Apple and Google, it's not perfect but it is good," she told a Senate committee hearing on Thursday.
The tech companies plan to release the first stage of the new tool in May, to allow official public health tracing apps to work.
The government is yet to nominate a specific timeframe for its app release but Mr Morrison has been talking about it being imminent.
The prime minister again sought to allay privacy concerns, saying the commonwealth would have no access to app data.
But Digital Rights Watch says the public scepticism is of the government's own making due to its poor track record on technology projects.
"Trusting the government to administer this capability is asking people in Australia to take a huge leap of faith - faith they're a long, long way from earning," chair Lizzie O'Shea said.
Australian Associated Press
