?A lemon?: Coalition fights to keep Covidsafe app data under wraps

The Morrison government insists it is negotiating with the states about "future uses" for its troubled Covidsafe app despite it not being used during the outbreaks that prompted lockdowns in Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

The government is also refusing to release how many Australians continue to use the app, with one tech expert accusing the government of trying to avoid disclosing embarrassing data rather than admit it had failed to achieve its purpose.

Since vaccination rates reached more than 90% of the eligible population in most states, contact tracing is slowly being scaled back, with health authorities limiting the number of people contacted and asked to test and isolate.

Even when contact tracing played a critical role in reducing the number of cases, the app was of little assistance.

Almost none of the contacts were identified through the federal government's CovidSafe contact tracing app despite well over 7 million people in Australia downloading it last year and the prime minister, Scott Morrison, declaring it the ticket out of lockdown.

Since launching in April last year, just 17 "close contacts" in NSW were found directly through the app that were not otherwise identified through manual contact tracing methods.

Guardian Australia has been engaged in a year-long freedom of information battle with the Digital Transformation Agency to reveal how many people continued to use the app after installing it.