Digital Passenger Card developed by Accenture scrapped

The federal government has scrapped the requirement for international travellers arriving into Australia to use its digital passenger card, amid questions over the app’s usability.

Home Affairs minister Clare O’Neil announced the changes last week following advice from Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, partially in response to “feedback” about the digital passenger declaration (DPD).

Developed by Accenture under contracts totalling $60 million over three years, the DPD is intended to eventually replace the paper-based incoming passenger card. 

The app currently has a rating of 1.3 stars out of five on the Apple App Store – a score that is unchanged since April despite multiple new releases in that time – and 1.2 stars out of five on Google Play.

An earlier attempt to replace the incoming paper passenger card in 2017 also failed.

Accenture scored the gig following a 10-month procurement that followed the government’s failed billion-dollar plan to outsource Australia’s visa processing platform, the initial procurement of which cost almost $100 million.

- CyberBeat