COVIDSafe App

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:39): Supplementary question: I'm not sure that the minister understood my question. Is it actually possible for the COVIDSafe app to be used if you yourself were to test positive to trace your contacts?

The Hon. S.G. Wade: If I test positive?

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Right now, can we use it?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:39): Well, my understanding is that the information can't be used unless the person who has been identified—

The Hon. T.A. Franks: If it can't be used regardless of your permission, have we got the right legislative framework in place so that our state public health officials can actually use this app, because as of last Thursday they did not have that?

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Franks, the minister can answer your first supplementary. If you have another one perhaps you could frame it to that point.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: My understanding is that if I, as a user, don't consent to my data being downloaded then it won't be downloaded. That's a policy decision of the commonwealth. Personally I think that does raise issues because, with all due respect, I think the Hon. Mr Hood might like to know that I'm COVID positive even if I don't choose to tell him. Similar issues come up in all sorts of infectious disease situations, but that's a policy decision the commonwealth has made and my understanding is that if I'm the subject of the positive test and I'm a user of COVIDSafe—they are two conditions precedent—I can, having consented to using COVIDSafe, I can not consent to my data being used to contact others. That is my understanding of the commonwealth framework.