Canberrans who provide fake names when signing into venues aren't helping helping anybody, Acting Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly says, dismissing privacy concerns about the contact-tracing registers.
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Venues across the ACT are required under public health orders to patrons to provide their names and contact details in order to aid in contract tracing if a COVID-19 outbreak occurs.
The records are required to be stored securely and retained for 28 days.
But the ACT's Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan said the entire contact-tracing regime was being undermined by Canberrans using fake names like "Donald Duck" and "Mickey Mouse" on the forms.
"If Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse continue as it is, and we do have coronavirus spread in the ACT it is going to make it very difficult for us to contact trace, so people need to adhere to it," Chief Police Officer Gaughan said.
However sign-in sheets have been placed in prominent locations such as front bars. This has led to concerns anyone can see the names and the contact details of other patrons present in a venue.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner says information should not be placed on a book, notepad or computer screen where customers may see it.
But despite the privacy fears, Professor Kelly appealed to Canberrans on Friday to stop using false names.
"I understand people's privacy concerns but we are in a pandemic, and I can absolutely say that the quicker people can do that contact tracing the better the outcome not only for individuals but for the society in general," Professor Kelly said.
"So, please, think about putting those false addresses and false numbers, it's not going to help you and it's not going to help anybody."
Professor Kelly said businesses could use QR codes instead of the manual sign-in sheets to alleviate concerns about privacy.
"If they want to use that they can," Professor Kelly said.
ACT Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said on Thursday the government was working with businesses to help them move to electronic records of patron details.
