ArrivalCAN's setbacks continue: A new class action lawsuit is being filed against the federal government over a quarantine notice that was mistakenly sent to more than 10,000 mobile application owners in 2022.
The lawsuit was launched in recent days by the Consumer Law Group, a law firm specializing in class actions.
Its website explains that this error “resulted in at least 10,200 travelers being subjected to illegal quarantine upon arrival at an entry point due to issues with the ArrivalCAN application.”
These already known figures were brought to the fore by Canada's Auditor General (AG) when she delivered her report last week on ArrivalCAN's disastrous management.
In its report, the VG states that the error affected owners of version 3.0 of the mobile application for iOS, the operating software for iPhones.
Over a period of nearly a month, between June 28 and July 20, 2022, mobile notifications and emails ordering a 14-day quarantine were sent to more than 10,000 mobile app users.
As the Consumer Law Group points out, the AG found that “the review of the ArrivalCAN app’s testing was deficient” and that “the documentation of the app’s testing was inadequate.”
However, the company is casting a wider net as part of its collective action: It is attempting to collect “all individuals who traveled to Canada between November 21, 2020 and October 1, 2022” who may have received an incorrect quarantine notice.
She is calling on people who have experienced this “unjustified” quarantine to submit a form to request compensation from the government.
The company does not specify the amount of damages claimed on its website. Consumer Law Group did not immediately respond to our request for an interview.