Health Minister Mark Butler kills off COVIDSafe app introduced under Scott Morrison

The Canberra Times can reveal the app, which cost taxpayers at least $100,000 per month to keep switched on, stopped collecting data on Monday and the Health Department is in the process of shutting down its supporting systems.

Late yesterday, Australians with the app installed on their devices were notified that COVIDSafe was being decommissioned, and to uninstall it, as it was not longer "being used to assist health officials with contact tracing."

It can now be revealed Mr Butler signed a notifiable instrument at the end of July declaring the app "no longer required to prevent or control; the entry, emergence, establishment or spread" of COVID-19.

The move comes more than two years after the app was first released under the former Coalition government to help contact tracers stop mass-spreading events.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison once described it as the early "ticket" out of lockdowns and likened it to being as essential as sun protection.

But it emerged soon after that its role in assisting health authorities was limited.

In August last year, The Canberra Times revealed then-health minister Greg Hunt had sat on a secret report into the app's effectiveness delivered to him months earlier.

Covering the six-month period between between March and November during the first year of the pandemic, the third-party report found the app had provided little assistance to the health response.

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It also revealed it would not be useful in high-risk settings such as crowded indoor venues and major outdoor events.

The consulting company tasked with the review, Abt Associates, told the government it was important the 7 million Australians who had downloaded the app acknowledged "the performance barriers that are limiting the effectiveness and efficiency of COVIDSafe".

The app's barriers included technical flaws, some of which have since been resolved, such as a lack of location data and a "cumbersome" system that increased contact tracing team workloads for little reward.

A second report, covering the period between May and November 2021 and tabled in December, showed 13 app users consented to their data being used for contract tracing.

Of those users, there was a total of 331 "digital handshakes" with other in-range app users, resulting in two potential close contacts being identified from nine encounters.

A third report, detailing the six-month period leading up to May this year, is expected to be tabled in an upcoming sitting week.