The Federal Government is working with Apple and Google on a new coronavirus surveillance tool, amid warnings that if it moves ahead of the tech giants, it risks its version being useless.

Australian officials are pushing ahead with an app based on the TraceTogether software that is being used in Singapore to find people who were in close contact with someone with coronavirus.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the new app has a single job: to help public health officers get in touch with those who may have been exposed to the virus.

“We have no interest in it doing any other job. There is no geolocation. There is no tracking of people’s movements. None of that is true,” he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.