Digital Passenger Declaration app works? Don't make me laugh

[bear]

Traveller Letters: The Digital Passenger Declaration app works? Don't make me laugh!!

COMPUTER SAYS NO

I can't agree more about the Australian Digital Passenger Declaration being a nightmare (Traveller Letters, June 11). Border Force's assertions that it works are laughable. I submitted my declaration at least five times, each time receiving an email to say I had successfully completed the declaration.

However subsequent attempts to retrieve the declaration were met with incorrect password, password reset required, incomplete information alert, failure to scan the international vaccination certificate barcode and more. Travellers, avoid some unnecessary stress by taking screenshots of your declaration results, including your DPD registration number, before logging out.

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx, Ballarat, VIC

NO FUN IN REFUND

Regrettably, the Digital Passenger Declaration form isn't the only app from the Department of Home Affairs that doesn't work. Before departing Darwin on an international flight last week I carefully filled out the details of my purchases on the Tourist Refund Scheme app.

When I presented my TRS claim, complete with QR code, to the Border Force staff they told me the app doesn't work with their computers at Darwin airport and they gave me a paper form to fill out. Maybe the app should let people know which airports the app works in and which ones it doesn't.

xxxxx xxxxxxx, Essendon, VIC

ALL AT SEA
More fun and games (not!) from the Department of Home Affairs. With cruising returning to Australia, I found out that passengers arriving by sea are expected to complete a "Maritime Travel Declaration". The time window to do this could be problematic for passengers.

xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxc, Hurstville, NSW

LETTER OF THE WEEK

WELL DOCUMENTED
On a rare free Saturday my priority was a renewed passport for my god-daughter's wedding. The local post office was closed due to staff illness. Five minutes north, that one was also closed.

Fifteen minutes south was the same. One sign said try up the hill or by the sea. The first was closed, and the latter didn't process passports. Monday afternoon, the local was open but the machine was down.

Wednesday afternoon, the central PO couldn't see the margin indicators on the printed form. One hour later, re-print, photos and money ($300) taken, all done - pending ease of backlog.

Continue reading:-
www.traveller.com.au/traveller-letters-the-digital-passenger-declaration-app-works-dont-make-me-laugh-h24lkd

[bear]

The DPD is dead. Long live the DPD?

I don't think so. I can't believe many Australian travellers would be mourning the loss of the Australian Digital Passenger Declaration, the government app that was introduced in February this year as a requirement for travellers arriving in this fair country, and will be discontinued from Wednesday this week.

Everyone was so excited about international borders reopening back in February that we paid scant attention to this new piece of technology, this data gathering device that we would have to interact with every time we attempted to get back into Australia (because one of the baffling quirks of the DPD was that it didn't remember any of your details, and so you would have to re-enter everything every time you travelled).

I wanted to like the DPD, I really did. After all, it was representative of freedom, of the ability to once more move around the world at leisure. It also made sense in a lot of ways, given Australia is one of the few developed countries in the world still using paper arrivals cards, and a shift to online seemed a good idea.

You can imagine my surprise then, first time I entered Australia after going through the laborious DPD process online, only to find that I still had to enter all of those same details once again on the old paper arrivals cards (my assumption is those cards were needed purely for the customs declaration on one side – still, you had to fill the whole thing in: intended address, next of kin, reason for visiting, etcetera etcetera.)

So, what was the good of the DPD? Though the Department of Home Affairs swore there were never any problems with the app, which was introduced in February this year and cost $75 million to develop – you read that right, $75 million for about five months of service – anyone who went anywhere near it would have been able to tell you it was littered with bugs (the app currently has a rating of 1.3 stars on Apple's AppStore, from more than 1200 reviews). Traveller's readers were equally scathing.

To begin with, obviously, was the fact you had to start from scratch every time you travelled, re-entering your every detail, even including your username and password, which couldn't be saved. So that's time-consuming in itself.

Everyone was so excited about international borders reopening back in February that we paid scant attention to this new piece of technology, this data gathering device that we would have to interact with every time we attempted to get back into Australia (because one of the baffling quirks of the DPD was that it didn't remember any of your details, and so you would have to re-enter everything every time you travelled).

I wanted to like the DPD, I really did. After all, it was representative of freedom, of the ability to once more move around the world at leisure. It also made sense in a lot of ways, given Australia is one of the few developed countries in the world still using paper arrivals cards, and a shift to online seemed a good idea.

You can imagine my surprise then, first time I entered Australia after going through the laborious DPD process online, only to find that I still had to enter all of those same details once again on the old paper arrivals cards (my assumption is those cards were needed purely for the customs declaration on one side – still, you had to fill the whole thing in: intended address, next of kin, reason for visiting, etcetera etcetera.)

So, what was the good of the DPD? Though the Department of Home Affairs swore there were never any problems with the app, which was introduced in February this year and cost $75 million to develop – you read that right, $75 million for about five months of service – anyone who went anywhere near it would have been able to tell you it was littered with bugs (the app currently has a rating of 1.3 stars on Apple's AppStore, from more than 1200 reviews). Traveller's readers were equally scathing.

To begin with, obviously, was the fact you had to start from scratch every time you travelled, re-entering your every detail, even including your username and password, which couldn't be saved. So that's time-consuming in itself.

www.traveller.com.au/digital-passenger-declaration-dpd-app-scrapped-and-good-riddance-h24uqt