New South Wales resilience commissioner and former commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service Shane Fitzsimmons has assured the systems built by government to respond to crises -- whether it is a natural disaster such as a bushfire, or the COVID-19 pandemic -- are done so with the user's trust in mind.
"In the government and public information space, we are absolutely invested in making sure that we are building systems that are virtuous, and absolutely with the intent of doing good and doing better for people. That is the core focus. Not to misuse and build a break in that trust contract," he said, speaking during a roundtable on Tuesday.
Fitzsimmons pointed to how the NSW government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with the release of its contact tracing QR code check-in system[1], as an example.
"What we've been doing in the last 6-12 months in New South Wales alone, but as a nation, is having agile, up-to-date critically important websites and public-facing tools to give people the latest information and the updates on what they can't do, what the restrictions are, where the progress is up to.
"It's a government-sponsored QR code, so there is a trust element that goes to a trusted source of government."
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He acknowledged, however, there are always mixed views when it comes to trusting government around handling people's data, particularly when it is compared to the trust people have for social media companies.
"In the last six to 12 months, the federal government rolled out the COVIDSafe app and there was this campaign of information of you can't trust the government, you can't trust them, what are they going