Coronavirus Australia

This article is about the app. For information on the outbreak in Australia, see COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.
Not to be confused with COVIDSafe.

Coronavirus Australia
Developer(s)
Initial release29 March 2020; 4 years ago (2020-03-29)
Final release
1.1 / 28 May 2020; 4 years ago (2020-05-28)[1]
Written in
  • Kotlin (Android)
  • Swift (iOS)
Operating systemAndroid, iOS
Size
  • 7.1 MB (Android)
  • 23.6 MB (iOS)
Available inEnglish
LicenceProprietary software
Websitewww.health.gov.au/resources/apps-and-tools/coronavirus-australia-app

Coronavirus Australia was an app released by the Australian Government designed to allow users to access information about the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.[2] The app was released by the Department of Health on 29 March 2020,[3] and decommissioned two years later on 31 August 2022.[4] Over its lifetime, the app was downloaded over a million times and was initially ranked first in the Apple App Store's "Health and Fitness" category.[5] Due to the short development period of two weeks, the app initially served primarily as an aggregate of links to official government websites.[6] Shortly after an update was released adding a voluntary "isolation registration" form that collected the location, name, age, mobile phone number, isolation start date, and various other details about users who were self isolating.[7][8]

On 14 April 2020 a separate contact tracing app, COVIDSafe, was announced based on Singapore's TraceTogether app and BlueTrace protocol.[9][10]

  1. ^ "Coronavirus Australia - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  2. ^ "Government launches Coronavirus Australia app, WhatsApp feature". ABC News. 29 March 2020. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  3. ^ Page (CMO), Rosalyn (2 April 2020). "Coronavirus Australia app diverse customer experience focus". www.cmo.com.au. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  4. ^ "Coronavirus Australia app". Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. 26 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  5. ^ "Coronavirus Australia on the App Store". 12 April 2020. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  6. ^ Knowles, Catherine. "Australian Govt teams up with Delv to release COVID-19 app". itbrief.com.au. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  7. ^ Taylor, Josh (31 March 2020). "Coronavirus and app downloads: what you need to know about protecting your privacy". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  8. ^ "Screenshot of COVID-19 Isolation Registration Form". 4 October 2020.
  9. ^ Crowe, David (14 April 2020). "Mobile tracing is next step in virus battle in bid to stop outbreaks". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  10. ^ xssfox (17 April 2020). "Tweet by xssfox". @xssfox. Retrieved 18 April 2020.