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Google PlayFollowing reports that ArriveCan cost the Canadian government a hefty $54-million, two Canadian tech companies say they were able to recreate the infamous travel app in under 48 hours to show that the federal government drastically overpaid for it.
Lazer Technologies and TribalScale held a “hackathon” where employees could create their own duplicate of ArriveCan. Daniel Whiffing, one of Lazer Technologies’ developers, finished a clone and to prove what he did wasn’t a hoax, Whiffing uploaded the code to GitHub.
In a statement published on Lazer Technologies’ site, they also uploaded a video detailing how the cloned app functions.
“The best way we believed we could do this was by sharing insight into this topic and by showing that it could be done. That’s why we decided to make a simple clone version of the ArriveCAN app,” said Zain Manji, co-founder of Lazer Technologies. “Proving that this app could be built in a weekend is a good way to focus attention on the problem, but hopefully it opens up the discussion as to why Canada doesn’t have the best structure, team, resources, tools, frameworks, etc to produce new technology efficiently.”
Sheetal Jaitly, CEO of TribalScale, asked “how could the government spend this amount of money on [ArriveCan]?” on Newstalk1010.
The Canadian government first used ArriveCan to make travellers fill out information pertaining to their health and COVID-19 while they were away from the country. It has since grown, allowing its users to answer questions relating to customs and immigration. While once mandatory, the Canadian government has since eased its stance on the app, making it fully optional to travellers returning to Canada.
