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The state government has placed a $ 1.1 million contract with a Western Australian company to develop a new smartphone app that uses facial recognition and GPS tracking technology to monitor people who need to be quarantined at home.

Health Secretary Stephen Wade told Parliament in a written statement Thursday that the app would be used to track people entering South Australia from COVID-19 interstate hotspots or who have close or casual contacts with local cases to ensure that they adhere to these quarantine instructions.

He said the app will not be used to monitor people traveling from overseas.

Government documents show that Perth-based technology company GenVis won the $ 1,102,310 contract following a selective bid process in November.

GenVis is behind WA’s “G2G Now” app, which uses facial recognition and phone location data to check whether people are in quarantine at their registered address.

The WA app sends users a push notification to check in and gives them five minutes to take a picture of themselves.

Then the photo and the location are compared with the registered data of the user to ensure that he follows the quarantine direction.

Downloading and using the G2G app is voluntary in WA, but the government encourages people to use it, claiming that “protects you and the rest of the community while freeing up more police resources that would otherwise conduct more regular physical checks. ”

Wade told Parliament that “multiple stakeholders” would be involved in developing the SA app “to ensure that the app meets public health response needs”.

InDaily asked Wade and SA Health on Friday when the app would go live, why GenVis was chosen, and how the state government would ensure people’s privacy is protected.

A spokesman for SA Health replied: “We are continuing to work on the development of the app with the successful tender.

“The final details, including full functionality and expected delivery time, are still being discussed.”

InDaily also contacted GenVis for comment.

A press release announcing the tender in October stated that the app would “activate the facial recognition check-in requirements at random intervals during the quarantine period and use geo-tracking technology to confirm that the User is at the quarantine location “.

It was stated that the app would be used in addition to the in-person checks carried out by SA Police with SA Health to notify the police if the app detects quarantine violations.

Wade said in the press release that the app would “fully comply” with state and federal regulations for managing privacy, data and records.

“There is no silver bullet for COVID-19 and we need a set of tools to keep all South Australians from the spread of the virus and protect our community,” he said.

“The new app could add another layer of protection to the already strong plan by the liberal government of Marshall to protect South Australians from COVID-19.”

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However, the state opposition has raised concerns about the app’s upcoming launch. Labor health spokesman Chris Picton called on the government to continue physical controls on people.

“Protecting our state borders is vital when outbreaks happen across the country and a WA company’s $ 1.1 million app alone isn’t a foolproof system,” he told InDaily this morning.

“No matter how good the app is, there will be ways to bypass it, so it cannot be a substitute for physical screening of people.

“The Marshall Government must assure the South Australians that the physical controls of the quarantined people will not decrease due to this new app.”

Picton added that following the signing of the contract in November, the tendering process “appears to have delivered little so far”.

A new case of COVID-19 was reported in SA today – a man in his twenties who recently returned from overseas and has been at a medi-hotel since arriving.

South Australia has recorded a total of 603 cases since the pandemic began.

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