government will simply tout the uptake rate regardless of whether people use it the way the design requires for tracing effectiveness. It is a normalising of government tracking exercise, not a health policy. https://twitter.com/tegan_writes/status/1254244341100339203

anyway here’s Greg Hunt for his big app launch moment. He has lined up a range of medical professionals to boost legitimacy here. Opens by thanking frontline health workers and of course the great Australian public. No tech or privacy experts.

note that Morrison has handed the spotlight to Hunt, which speaks to how much he cares about the health aspect of the app. He doesn’t.

Hunt does a reasonable job of contextualising the place of tracing in an overall virus response. He then starts in eith the propaganda. Says the app is to protect health care workers, that untraceability of some cases is how the virus gets into aged care homes for example.

how to get the app? Download from the app store so far so good. If you have voluntarily installed the app you may be asked to download it again. By health officials. To trace who you have come in contact with because someone you were near has tested positive. What?

no GPS, Hunt says. No GPS capability or no GPS data stored? Assume someone will ask about that.

the promo video has been created in a timely manner. It is authorised by the chief medical officer, Canberra lol Morrison has been politicising “authorised by” on Liberal Party and Commonwealth ads for a while now. This time it is Brendan Murphy.

and with that ad lede, Hunt hands over to CMO Murphy. He labours through the laborious manual contact tracing process and says the app “automates the process to some extent”.

CMO stresses that public health officials have been very very supportive of this app and “keen” to put the “protections” in place. Not a single privacy protection has been legislated btw despite the custodial penalties mentioned earlier by Hunt. App first, law later.

Midwifery peak body head whose name I missed reiterates the message that the app is about getting back to our way of life, a key government selling point. She is there to boost trust, again, no privacy protections have been legislated.

Medical doctor peak body guy, who also labours laboriously over how laborious manual tracing is for health systems. He promises technical and privacy issues will be addressed.
Launch first, again. Again, this whole thing run, by an untrustworthy government, on trust.

correction, peak nursing and midwifery Annie Butler now speaking. She is there to support the app as one strand of the response. It is not a panacea. We are continuing to expand testing. This speaker *is* a calming, reassuring presence imo.

Butler says she is an RN and not a tech person but her understanding is this app operates as a Bluetooth handshake and right now it is the only safe handshake we have. Hunt gives a mirthless bark of appreciation at this modest pun.

Questions. Grattan up first, asks about limits to uptake. Hunt quotes someone else, not sure who. An expert in something, Hunt is confident he has the right name drop tho.

flicks to Murphy who says a good uptake is half and Australians are good at distancing so he is confident we will take up the app. He then says that “all their concerns, the security, it is bolted on” which is not true.

Hunt then says there has never been a set of protections that have been put in place under law for this app which is odd because as I understand it no law has been passed. He says no court order, including crim law, can unlock the covid app data.

Q: maiden says she can’t download it and also what are the guidelines for not having other apps open, phone unlocked etc and also if it can’t be used for any other purpose, what if it tracks to a Bondi house party, is that somehow exempt??

one app, one usage one purpose, says Hunt. If the app is used for anything else that is punishable by jail. I am sooo confused by this. Were custodial penalties passed by executive decree? Which is against principle, not that this government cares about that.

Probyn. Asks about smartphone in schools. Murphy refers back to the non-peer reviewed study - most of the research time frame fell during post-restrictions period - and says they are pushing for adults, not pushing for school children, to take up the app.

asked about potential mandatory uptake, Hunt says it is illegal for any premises to make it mandatory to have the app as a condition of entry. Hunt lies that the PM “said from the outset we are only doing this if it is voluntary”. No, he didn’t.

FINALLY (unless I missed it earlier) Hunt says the safeguards, including custodial penalties, are “bio security determinations”. So yes, executive decree. Regulations, authorised as emergency bio security measures, means the safeguards will probably expire by passage of time.

to underline the lies about mandatory vs voluntary uptake, Hunt lays on patriotism with a trowel. He says cabinet decided it would be voluntary because Australians are so great and we love our freedom to download apps or not or some shit like that.

and with another patriotic flourish, Hunt is gone. ABC News 24 then crosses to Jane Norman to reiterate the government message. She refers to the medical professionals on stage as “the medical industry”.

another clarification on safeguards: the biosecurity determination - a delegated law made by ministerial decree - will be legislated when parliament returns in May. Biosecurity statutes have emergency provisions empowering ministers to do this (app launches are not emergencies).