The Australian government deleted a coronavirus tracking app after it was formally launched two years ago, calling it ‘wasteful’ and ‘ineffective’. Australia’s health minister, Mark Butler, claimed that the ‘former government wasted more than $21 million of taxpayer money on this failed app’.
The COVIDSafe app was released in April 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world. According to the government, only two positive COVID-19 cases were identified through the app that was not discovered by manual contact tracers.
According to the government, there have been 7.9 million registrations on the COVIDSafe app in the last two years, with only 800 users agreeing to share data on contact tracing. Butler’s ministry stated that $10 million was spent on developing the app and another $7 million on advertising. The government also stated that over $2 million was spent on app maintenance and another $2 million on staff retention.
‘This failed app was a colossal waste of more than $21 million in taxpayer money. The former prime minister said this app would be our sunscreen’ against COVID-19 — all it did was burn through taxpayers’ money,’ Butler said in a tweet. ‘ It was contact tracers working on the ground who were the real success story, not this failed app,’ Butler said, adding, ‘It is clear this app failed as a public health measure, which is why we acted to delete it’.
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