All NSW workplaces and retail businesses will be required to use Service NSW QR codes from next month. The requirement, beginning July 12, will represent a massive ramping-up of the state’s information collection relating to the coronavirus and will impact virtually every adult in the state.
It will mean anyone who attends their workplace or any type of store will have to scan a QR code using a smartphone when they enter the building.
“We’ve seen with Covid how fast it moves,” Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello told reporters on Wednesday.
“(The delta strain) moves at lightning pace, so we need to adjust our circumstances accordingly.”
The new rule will impact retail businesses and supermarkets, shopping centres and individual shops within them, gyms, offices, factories, warehouses, schools and universities.
Hospitality businesses will also be required to check in every visitor, including those who only show up to pick up a takeout order.
School students will not be required to use the QR codes.
“This is about keeping customers and staff safe and getting all businesses open again as soon as possible,” Mr Dominello said.
He said he had already spoken to several large retail and supermarket businesses and told them he expected they would put the new requirement into action as soon as possible.
Supermarket chains like Coles and Woolworths have already begun offering customers the choice to use the Service NSW check-in system.
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QR stands for “quick response” and is a type of barcode people can scan using their smartphone camera, which enables them to access websites or applications.
The Service NSW version came into use last year and became the only acceptable QR code system for hospitality venues and hairdressers starting on January 1, 2021.
The data collected by the app is used by contact tracers to figure out who has been to a venue at a given time so that they can be contacted if a coronavirus-positive person visited the place at the same time.
The data is kept for 28 days and then deleted, and can only be used by NSW Health, Service NSW said.