ArriveCAN Nears 800,000 Reviews in the App Store

Canada’s infamous ArriveCAN app, which cost taxpayers at least $60 million, is approaching nearly 800,000 reviews in Apple’s App Store.

Wait, what? Yes, this is indeed real. As pointed out by @ryangerritsen, ArriveCAN shows 795,000 ratings with an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars. A government-made app with nearly 800,000 ratings and an average of 4.5 stars? It doesn’t take a genius to realize these are likely paid reviews by bots by the ArriveCAN team.

“ArriveCan is now closing in on 800,000 reviews. More reviews than Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and AppleTV combined. What a joke,” said Ryan.

ArriveCAN has more App Store reviews than X, with the former Twitter app only showing about 674,000 ratings.

Looking at ArriveCAN within the Google Play Store, it has close to 84,000 reviews, with an average 4.7 stars rating out of 5. The latest reviews on both Google Play and the App Store are 1-star reviews, with users blasting the app’s poor user experience still.

Back in April, an ArriveCAN app contractor was subjected to a rare reprimand in the House of Commons for dodging questions from Members of Parliament related to the project. Kristian Firth, co-founder of GC Strategies, had his home searched by the RCMP, with allegations related to fraudulent billing and resumé fraud related to the development of ArriveCAN.

The two-man team at GC Strategies, which operated out of their own home, was paid close to $19 million for the development of ArriveCAN, a number scrutinized by Auditor General Karen Hogan. Her report in February revealed ArriveCAN had cost taxpayers $60 million and counting, with the final tally unknown due to a lack of paper trail.

ArriveCAN for iOS was last updated five months ago with accessibility improvements and bug fixes. The purpose of the app is to essentially allow a digital declaration form for Canadians returning home from abroad. During COVID-19 it was mandatory for travellers to use the app and to prove they were fully vaccinated upon returning home from abroad.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter today, an in-house memo from the federal Public Heath Agency said the idea to launch the $59.5 million ArriveCAN app was because it featured traditional customs declaration forms during COVID-19 could be infected. This was despite the PHA’s own doctors saying at the time there was no evidence coronavirus could be spread by paper. “We were told we could catch Covid from touching documents,” said the memo.

According to the Canada Border Services Agency, ArriveCAN still costs about $3 million per year to operate.