Australia launches its COVID-19 tracking application amid some concerns over privacy and security of the application.  The data will be stored on Amazon servers, the source code has not been released and no peer review of the code. On day 1 there were scam text messages related to the app. The government hopes that 40% of the population will install the app on their smart phones to make it effective.  People are already concerned about the creeping intrusion into their lives this causes.  We have given up data security for dumber reasons before, Victoria has all its drivers license data stored in China for no apparent reason.

So in these tumultuous times make sure you are tracking your peasants lest they become unruly and seek to topple their masters.

Already over 1 million Australians have downloaded this application. The application claims to track people you have been in close proximity with for more than 15 minutes. Surely these days you would know who you have been in contact with like that in this age of physical distancing. You’ll notice the meme of ‘social distancing’ as a further attempt to atomize people.

So the application is somewhat pointless and is just another over reach into your privacy for no good reason. If the COVIDSAFE application does have any real purpose, it certainly isn’t being disclosed to you.

–Addendum–

A researcher, Mathew Robbins has examined the app as discovered it does ask for permission to access GPS location. So yes, it intends to be a tracking app in future releases at the very least. He also notes Australia’s invasive metadata laws and Facebook’s creepiness.

https://twitter.com/matthewrdev/status/1254336105203200000