1. Here’s what you need to know about the COVIDSafe app.
2.What is the COVIDSafe app?
3.How do I set up the app?
4.How does COVIDSafe help protect the community?
5.Who will use the information?
6.More information about COVID-19
” An app has been developed to help protect everyone in Australia from the spread of coronavirus. It speeds up the current manual process used by public health officers to find contacts of someone diagnosed with coronavirus.
Finding you quickly means you can better protect your families and friends from being infected and get help to support your health.
If you have a mobile phone, download the app to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
We understand the easing of restrictions is only temporary if COVID-19 cases are kept out of our communities , so we still need retain the formula, washing hands, social distancing, and following the rules with a healthy dose of common sense, if we keep this up, our cases will stay down ”
2.What is the COVIDSafe app?
The app operates in the background on your phone as you go about your day. It uses a ‘Bluetooth’ signal to communicate with other phones that are close by which also have the app. It only records the date, time, distance and duration of contact.
The app does not record your location or movement. Public health officers can only access the information to find people exposed to the virus. It is about coronavirus – and only coronavirus.
The information is stored for 21 days and then automatically deleted. This information is encrypted and stored in the app on your phone. No-one, not even you, can access it. And special laws have been put in place to protect your privacy.
3.How do I set up the app?
You can download it from app stores on Android and iOS. The app is free and downloading it is voluntary.
After downloading, you register by entering a name, phone number, postcode and age range.
You will be prompted to delete the app from your phone when coronavirus is no longer a risk in Australia. This will delete all information stored in the app.
4.How does COVIDSafe help protect the community?
If you are diagnosed with coronavirus, a public health officer will ask you about everyone you have been close to recently. This means that you need to try and remember everyone who was no more than two big steps away from you for at least 15 minutes in the last two weeks. This can be hard – and, by using technology, the app makes it so much easier.
If you have downloaded the app, you can choose to give the health officers access to the information on the app (which would have recorded who you had been in close contact with).
This will enable the health officers to quickly identify and contact the right people and prevent the virus spreading.
5.Who will use the information?
The public health officers in your state or territory will only have access to this information so they can contact and let you know:
- what to look out for
- if you need to quarantine
- how, when and where to get tested, and
- how you can protect yourself, your family, your friends, Elders and the community.
6.More information about COVID-19
It is important to stay informed through official sources. For more information about coronavirus, visit australia.gov.au or call the National Coronavirus Helpline on 1800 020 080.