The NHS contact-tracing app

I am very uncomfortable with the whole thing. The app should have been independently develpoed then independently audited for privacy. Then and only then should it be released to the public.
I will not be putting it on my phone.

I find it quite difficult to believe that someone has been given unfettered access to NHS data, if that is the case then it contravenes GDPR as I have never given permission for my data to be used in this way, and I have to pro-actively "opt-in", which no one has done as yet.
 
"Hancock says the NHS track and trace app will take “full consideration" of privacy concerns, which have been raised in relation to the approach in the UK and elsewhere." - BBC coverage of the latest briefing.

Well, that's a ringing endorsement if ever I heard one. They're going to give it a thought, but nothing to say what they're doing about it, especially as it's Cummings' professional "weirdos" that'll have access to the full whack. He might as well have said GDPR my asre.

Not for me either.
 
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Didn't they say that the app will have an anonymised ID and that location data will be stored locally on the phone?
That's the same method used in Singapore I believe.
I'll guarantee that someone will tear it down before it makes a national rollout.
 
Dood I mentioned earlier that you can write and protect code from being de-compiled if you wish. It's not that difficult.

I'll repeat that without the app being independently developed it will go nowhere near my phone.
 
Dominic Cummins and his friends will probably tag those without a valid phone. They need to justify their £250m fee.

Why can't we use human contact tracing which seems more civilised, as done in South Korea and Germany - there seems to loads of people spending their days cycling and or saying they are bored so their should be 8 million of people funded by the tax payers at present available to help. Most people infected were probably infected by someone they knew, but people don't like to admit it. Don't need an app to ask.
 
South Korea's contact tracing is entirely connected to the app. It is vital that we use it, and I think those that go out in public without using it will be every bit as irresponsible as people who have ignored the lockdown.

1984 is a fiction. We are not close to faciscm. The novel is one of the least prescient works of science fiction you will ever read. The government does not want to control everything you do. Nor do the people who work for the government. This information is of far greater use to corporations who you have already sold your souls to. Just delete the app from your phone when this whole thing is over. Some people seem ridiculously obsessed with Dominic Cummins.
 
If proximity time is say 10 minutes, what is the range of the app alert i.e. how physically close do you to have to be. is it 2 metres for 10 minutes?

Does it work through walls? (most people don't live in detached houses) so what if one of your close neighbours is infected do you go into self isolation, because the app has picked up a signal through the wall.

If people are picking up the virus from touching items, the app will not help with those infections. I noticed the way cold viruses spread at work was through shared keyboards.

I can understand it is useful if say you get your haircut or go for a face to face medical appointment and spend 10 minutes with someone so sat on a bus train next to someone, but no one at present are doing those things or in very small numbers. In most of those situations could we have daily testing for specific close contact workers while the virus is still around.
 
I'd imagine the data it is has to plug into is different so it can't be copied wholesale. Hopefully it will be very similar. It's traditional for the public sector to **** away large sums of money to private companies. Has done as long as I've worked for it. Don't know if it started with Blair, but in the early 2000s we did have our own IT teams.
 
Sheriff and anyone

Is there a site with specific information about this app such as time, distances, reporting procedures?
 
No idea. I can't claim to be any sort of an expert on the British version of it. I have been scouring the Korean and Chinese news sites for the last few months though. All of the apps seem to follow the same principles. You flag up that you are ill, you get tested, if it's positive alerts are sent to people you have come into contact with. As it's one of the measures taken in Asian countries that have been successful in fighting the virus, I think it's vital. Along with facemasks and temperature testing.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
I think those that go out in public without using it will be every bit as irresponsible as people who have ignored the lockdown.
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...but if people hadn't ignored the lockdown then we wouldn't need a tracing app 'cos the virus would have petered out. Similar for the government allowing 1000s per day into the country.

I value my privacy but not more than my life. However this is another "just for show" gimmick (cf Nightingale 'Hospitals') that they've come up which will do nothing but (a) syphon money from the NHS into private pockets, and (b) shift the blame away from the government (as you demonstrate).

South Korea et al may have had great success with apps but they've not used them in isolation - until we have large scale testing (actual tests, not 'capacity') and dedicated follow up teams we're just ******* into the wind.
 
Absolutely. But I think trying to copy a method that has worked in the real world wholesale is better than "following the science".
They may not have found conclusive evidence that facemasks work in a lab, but we can see that the countries that have been more successful in fighting the virus than us have all used them.
 
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