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Deakin University academic associate Professor Toija Cinque is calling for stricter policies regulating the type of information governments can collect during a pandemic, how it is stored, and how it must be protected after her research revealed millions of Australians’ data was compromised due to the rushed rollout of COVIDSafe.
According to Deakin University School of Communication and Creative Arts associate Professor Cinque's study, titled "Protecting communities during the COVID-19 global health crisis: health data research and the international use of contact tracing technologies", the rushed rollout of the "COVIDSafe" app compromised millions of Australians’ data.
The $9.1 million app asked users to record personal information about their race and ethnicity by rogue QR codes and government-endorsed contact tracing apps along with users' names, contact details, places they visited and other people they had interacted with.
Associate Professor Cinque also found her research revealed a significant number of respondents reported they were asked to log details about their race or ethnicity.
"Business owners were made to use QR codes by governments so their customers could check in.
"Many business managers just pulled codes from the internet not realising the information collected by these could also potentially be accessed by unknown individuals.
"We don’t yet know what the consequences of this could be for those people whose data has been leaked,” associate Professor Cinque said.
The study surveyed 2,000 international users of government-endorsed apps in Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.
About 12.9 per cent of Australian respondents, 27.2 per cent of Singaporeans, 19 per cent of participants living in the United Kingdom, and 18.2 per cent of people in the United States, revealed they were asked to record details about their race or ethnicity via a QR code or government-endorsed app.
The main research findings also included the following:
Associate Professor Cinque further explains that her study findings raise questions about the type of data being collected, why it was needed, and what the potential ramifications were if it was used by third parties.
"My report isn’t saying don’t use these apps or that they don’t serve an important purpose.
"But Australia needs to learn from the mistakes of COVIDSafe and its pandemic response to better prepare for future health crises, so this doesn’t happen again," associate Professor Cinque said.
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