QR code check-in system for venues in Victoria

Melbourne came out of lockdown this week and restaurants, bars, cafes and shops were allowed to open for the first time in nearly four months. 

Venues are expected to keep a record of who has visited, and when, so contact tracers can find people who were there at the same time as someone later discovered to have been infectious.

Like other jurisdictions around Australia, there has been a lack of consistency as to how businesses record people’s details. Some use pen and paper while many use a QR code that people scan using the camera on their phone that directs them to a Google form to fill out or a third-party website that collects details on the business’s behalf.

Tens of thousands of small and medium Australian businesses that rushed to outsource the management of their COVID check-in obligations could find themselves snared in a looming data privacy calamity.

Many of these electronic check-ins are outsourced to registration platforms that are often owned by companies that deal in collecting data, some operating under opaque rules about how that information is stored and used.

Questions have been asked about whether businesses can adequately store people’s personal details – and only for the length of time required. Another concern raised is whether people are being signed up for marketing mailing lists by venues using their own system.

The premier did not name a date for when the new universal system would be available to businesses but said he would make an announcement “soon”.