Together, by staying home, Tasmanians are saving lives.
Now, the Federal Government’s new COVIDSafe App will assist in helping keep you and your family to stay safe when you are away from your home.
Our manual tracing efforts over past weeks have worked very well, particularly in fighting the North-West outbreak, but we need your help to improve our tracing capacity even more.
The COVIDSafe App will allow anyone who has been exposed to be quickly tested and if necessary treated, and for the spread of the virus to be closed down swiftly.
It’s an important tool to help keep you, your family and your friends safe against the coronavirus.
Importantly, COVIDSafe doesn’t monitor your geographic movements, unlike many popular apps already on your phone, which access its GPS locator. Your privacy is also protected by law.
What it does, via Bluetooth, is record the contact details of any other phones with COVIDSafe installed that you are within close proximity – approximately 1.5 metres of the infected user for 15 minutes or more.
So, if you spend time with someone who is later found to have the coronavirus, with that person’s approval, health workers can access the COVIDSafe contact data from their phone for the last 21 days only, and if necessary, contact you to let you know you might be at risk.
Similarly, if you unknowingly had the virus and mixed with other people before testing positive, health workers could contact people you met to let them know they might have been exposed.
This would allow anyone who has been exposed to be quickly tested and if necessary treated, and for the spread of the virus to be closed down.
No one else will be able to access and use this data. The police, other state or federal authorities, private companies or any other individuals will not be able to access this information.
COVIDSafe is an important tool to help keep you, your family and your friends safe against coronavirus and I encourage everyone to download it from your App store.
Further information about the way COVIDSafe works and its privacy protections are available at https://www.health.gov.au/covidsafe-privacy-policy