When the coronavirus contact tracing app was released in late April, Australians were largely told they did not need to do anything special for the app to work.
While the Federal Government strongly tied downloads of COVIDSafe to the lifting of lockdown restrictions, its own testing at the time showed the software only worked effectively on locked iPhones about a quarter of the time or less.
Documents released by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) reveal the app's ability to communicate between two locked iPhones was rated as "poor" as of April 26, which means at launch, its own tests suggested it logged encounters at a rate of 25 per cent or below.
For unlocked or active iPhone-to-iPhone encounters, logging was rated as "excellent", or 80-100 per cent, as first reported by iTnews.
But most iPhone users are encouraged to have a default lock setting for their devices in order to protect their privacy.
The test results appear to contradict comments made by Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert at the time.
"To be effective, users should have the app running in the background when they are coming into contact with others," he said in a statement when the app was first available for download.
"Your phone does not need to be unlocked for the app to work."
The test documents were shared in response to questions asked by Senator Rex Patrick at a senate committee hearing investigating the Government's pandemic response.
Mr Patrick was concerned about the public focus on download numbers, which in his view were not a measure of success if the app could not do the job it was tasked with.
"They knew it wasn't working," he said.
COVIDSafe uses Bluetooth to transmit and record encrypted IDs from smartphones with the app that are within range.
But if it is not doing so reliably, contacts could be missed that would be vital to the contact tracing process if the device owner were to be diagnosed with COVID-19 or exposed to the virus.
Most smartphone apps undergo periodic updates to improve performance or fix security issues, but few are part of a national public health response.
A DTA spokesperson said it has taken an "iterative development approach" to COVIDSafe to allow the app to align "with the rapidly changing dynamics of the overall COVID-19 response".
The app has been updated five times so far, including improvements to Bluetooth performance on iOS, but it's unclear how many Australians have run it.
"Each update has delivered continued performance, security and accessibility improvements to COVIDSafe," the spokesperson said.
'Poor' encounter logging results also affected Android
The document also shows encounter logging was rated "poor" between locked Android to iOS devices as of April 26, as well as active Android to locked iOS devices.
By May 14, all three categories had improved their rating to "moderate", the document shows, which meant they could log encounters between two phones running COVIDSafe 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the time.
However it's not clear from the document in what environment the testing took place, according to Jessica Glenn, executive chair of technology firm QTE.am, which has also scrutinised the app.
Whether two phones were placed in proximity for 15 minutes, for example, or just a brief encounter.
It's a "hard question" whether the Government should have been more transparent about the app's limitations from the start, Ms Glenn said.
"If you assume that there was a strongly held belief that hitting 40 per cent of people as quickly as possible would be greatly beneficial for all Australians," she said.
"And that you have a fix that is about to be rolled out, then I can understand why you wouldn't be public about a temporary bug that would be remedied by the time people would be interacting."
It was not until around one week after launch that the DTA clarified to the ABC that there were limitations to Bluetooth functionality when an app was running in the background on an iPhone.
The background refers to when you switch from using the app to another app or when the phone is locked.
Government rhetoric about the app has softened from likening it to "sunscreen", to characterising it as another tool in the arsenal. Minister for Social Services Anne Ruston said in parliament this week that the app "complements the existing manual process by which we currently trace and track people".
The 40 per cent download target has also been abandoned.
Technical experts warned from the start the app could have performance issues on iPhone. Particularly as similar problems dogged Singapore's TraceTogether app, on which COVIDSafe was partially modelled.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said at launch that Australia "had the benefit of seeing what happened [in Singapore]" and has "been able to work to ensure that that is not an issue in Australia".
Bugs continue to impact app performance
COVIDSafe continues to be affected by software bug reports that could impact its ability to share IDs from other apps — an activity that is core to its function and benefit to contact tracing.
New research by Richard Nelson, a software developer in Sydney, suggests that if an iPhone is locked, the app cannot share new TempIDs. This is the identification code that's collected by other COVIDSafe apps in the vicinity, and which is meant to change periodically.
A locked iPhone will record IDs from other COVIDSafe apps in range, the report finds, but will not necessarily be recorded by others.
"When other devices come into contact with it, it can't say 'hey, here's my identifier'. So it's basically invisible to other devices," Mr Nelson said.
"It certainly has a material impact, particularly at big events...where you're going to have your phone locked in your bag or your pocket for a while. It will get into this state where it's not recording encounters as it should."
The bug arises due to how the app currently stores the tokens needed to fetch new TempIDs from the server, according to Mr Nelson. It is set up so the keychain where tokens are held can only be accessed if the device is unlocked.
Mr Nelson has shared his findings with the DTA and said the issue could be remedied with an app update.
"They wanted to get something out quickly to the public, which is fine," he said of the app's rollout.
"But if they went with that and said, 'hey look, we're releasing this now, we welcome your feedback, we understand there are probably some issues that we'd love the community to feedback on'...I think they'd be in a much better position."
In response to questions about Mr Nelson's bug, a DTA spokesperson said it continues to welcome feedback on COVIDSafe from the developer community.
As of June 11, no local health authorities have said COVIDSafe had identified any otherwise unidentified contacts.
Authorities say that is because case numbers in Australia are so low.
Data from the app has been accessed in around 30 coronavirus cases nationwide, during a period when around 565 new cases were diagnosed in Australia, including infections acquired overseas.
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