Facial Recognition used by Australian Government for Covid tracking
Information Certainty: Documented
Deployment Purpose: Health Surveillance
| Summary |
|---|
| 0 |
Products and Institutions:
| Product Deployed | GenVis (Software) |
|---|---|
| Institutions ⠉ | GenVis |
| Datasets | Unknown Dataset 0040 GenVis (Dataset) |
| Search software |
Status and Events:
| Status | Ongoing |
|---|---|
| Events | Start (1 November 2020, Documented, , No description) |
| Start Date | |
| End Date |
Users:
| Involved Entities | Australian Defence Force |
|---|---|
| Managed by | Government of Australia |
| Used by | Government of Australia Australian Federal Police South Australia Police Western Australia Police |
Location:
| City | Canberra |
|---|---|
| Country ⠉ | Australia |
Description[ ]
During the Covid 19 pandemic, the Australian Government implemented a range of tracking tools which included facial recognition. First a small trial was run in Southern Australia, then it was developed and trialled in Western Australia with Genvis, it was then rolled out to other states with no contract for GenVis. The purpose of these tools were to allow police to check if residents were quarantining at their homes when they should have been. If they could not verify their identity using the app, police were authorised to visit the home.
The South Australian government’s home quarantine app trial using facial recognition is the latest proposal in the tricky balance Australia must navigate between managing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic with the help of technology, and this same technology increasing incursions into the public’s privacy and individual rights. A similar app has been already been used in Western Australia. The NSW government has also announced trial of a similar app and the Victorian government has also followed suit. The South Australian app is intended to be the national model to be copied once trials are deemed successful. All the apps being trialled use geolocation and facial recognition software to track and identify individuals subject to home quarantine. The app prompts verification at random moments, and users are required to prove that they are at home using their devices using the facial recognition feature (as shown in Figure 1). The South Australian app allows up to 15 minutes to use facial recognition to verify their identity, 5 while the Western Australian app only allows 5 minutes.6 GPS is then used to verify those people/their devices are within their listed residences 1
In November 2020, West Australian based firm GenVis was selected as the successful tenderer for the $1.1 million contract to provide a COVID-19 home quarantine compliance app. The company's G2G app uses facial recognition and GPS tracking technology to check-in on people in isolation. The company already provides services to the WA Government with its G2G Now — a program developed in conjunction with WA Police. Work began on adapting the platform for South Australia, but in February the deal with GenVis was scrapped 3
Though the technology has been used in WA since last November, it has more recently been pitched as a tool to enable the country to reopen its borders, ending a system in place since the start of the pandemic that requires international arrivals to spend two weeks in hotel quarantine under police guard 2
The government of Western Australia has said it banned police from using data collected by COVID-related software for non-COVID matters. The WA police say they have put 97,000 people through home quarantine, using facial recognition, without incident 2
However, in other cases the police have been found to have accessed Covid government apps for investigative purposes, for example Western Australisa's SafeWA contact tracing app was accessed twice by police, who did not say they would stop using it.
The WA government was forced to introduce legislation after failing to reach an agreement with police over the use of information collected from the SafeWA app, Premier Mark McGowan says 4
References
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- ^ Guiao, Jordan. Government’s forced rollout of facial recognition for home quarantine needs strict limits and protections. , 2021.
- ^ Garcia, Sara and McClaren, Rory. How will South Australia's home quarantine trial work?. , 2021.
- a b Kaye, Ron. Australia's two largest states trial facial recognition software to police pandemic rules. , 2021.
- ^ Png, Kenith. Police chief says officers acted 'for the community' when they accessed Safe WA data amid murder probe. , 2021.