26.11.2020 Views

Ministers and Senators Behaving Badly Series 4

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

If you can't convince them, then confuse them …<br />

$16 million COVIDsafe app<br />

which managed to identify a total of 17 people<br />

Digital agency boss defends COVIDSafe app<br />

Daniel McCulloch for Yahoo Finance on 29 October 2020<br />

The man responsible for building Australia's coronavirus tracing app<br />

has defended the technology, which has so far cost almost $1 million<br />

for each case identified<br />

Seven million people have downloaded <strong>and</strong> registered for the COVIDSafe app.<br />

CREDIT:ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN<br />

R<strong>and</strong>all Brugeaud from the Digital Transformation Agency flatly rejected<br />

suggestions the COVIDSafe app was not working.<br />

"The app is absolutely working," he told a Senate estimates hearing on<br />

Thursday.<br />

"There is no question as to whether the app is capturing close contacts <strong>and</strong><br />

contributing to the public health effort."<br />

More than seven million Australians have downloaded <strong>and</strong> registered for<br />

the app, which cost $4 million to develop.<br />

Another $5.2 million has been spent on operational costs <strong>and</strong> almost<br />

$7 million on advertising, taking the total price tag to roughly $16<br />

million.<br />

The app has only helped find 17 contacts not found by manual tracers.<br />

Mr Brugeaud said the problem was not with the technology.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!