Scots struggling to use the Scottish Government’s new Covid status app ahead of vaccine passports becoming mandatory tomorrow have taken to social media to express their frustration.
With Scotland’s coronavirus vaccine passport scheme set to come into effect on Friday, the Scottish Government has released a new app to allow people to show proof of their status.
But after downloading the app on Thursday, many have attempted to register only to be informed there was “no match found” for their details.
Other error messages said people were “unsuccessful”, or that their picture was not recognised before it was even taken.
“We apologise for the inconvenience. Please try again later or contact our support team,” the app advises.
A tweet by Health Secretary Humza Yousaf advertising the app after it became available has been deluged with replies from those complaining the app does not work.
Former SNP MSP, Gail Ross, replied to Mr Yousaf’s tweet saying: “Not working, Humza”.
Others complained about the process to sign up to use the app, which involves taking a picture of your driving licence or passport to verify your identity.
‘It’s not working, Humza’, ex-SNP MSP tweets
Many reported that the app crashed or was not able to complete the sign up process.
“Who on Earth designed this? Did anybody even test this? It’s completely broken.
“We already have a login that we use to access our Covid status on the website and get the paper vaccine certificate, why can we not just use this same login on the app?” one man asked.
Another added: “This has to be one of the worst apps I’ve ever had the misfortune to attempt to use.
“I work in IT so I’m not an ignorant user. Sort it out.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said the problems were likely due to a high number of people trying to use the app.
They said: “Some people may be experiencing issues which are likely to be caused by extremely high initial traffic and a large number of users trying to access the app at once.
We advise people whose data is not found to try again a couple of hours later.
– Scottish Government
“We advise people whose data is not found to try again a couple of hours later.”
Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “The launch of the Covid status app has been a complete shambles.
“It is typical of the SNP to rush this out when it clearly doesn’t work.”
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