Inquiry about contact tracing app: QR-code vs Bluetooth beacon

Pau-Olivier Dehaye made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Health

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Dear Department of Health,

First of all congratulations to you and your ministry on your stellar response to COVID.

I would like to know if you have any available statistics on either the number of notifications, number of tests and/or number of cases found that are attributable in Australia at large or each of its territories to contact tracing apps, as well as a breakdown of each of those due to the QR-code or the Bluetooth channels.

I am particularly interested in comparing between the utility of each of those two channels in any way possible.

My motivation, living in Switzerland, is that we currently have an app deployed here that exclusively uses Bluetooth, and little traction for a QR-code based system. The theory says such a system would be much more effective than Bluetooth. Due to your low number of cases, I expect you might only have anecdotal evidence but this would still give tangible data to share here.

Thank you very much for your help,

Yours faithfully,

Pau-Olivier Dehaye

Pau-Olivier Dehaye

Dear Department of Health,

I have not received a response to my request. Please consider it.

Yours faithfully,

Pau-Olivier Dehaye