To not download the contact tracing app

[Ghostlyglow]

When it becomes available. How many people will?

I just watched something about on the BBC news and I would be happy to download the app if it meant we had a bit more freedom of movement. According to the piece both Apple and android are working to include it in their software so you might not have a choice about using it.

Yes, of course I will download it. Most countries are working on something similar.
Some countries (germany, I think) are using a google one, and other countries (New Zealand, I think), are using a similar one to the one being developed here (UK). (I understand, They work in slightly different ways)
The idea is that if you develop symptoms, tested positive for CV, then it will alert all the other people you have been near (bluetooth contact), over the last 14 days.
It will help the experts track how the disease is spreading / has spread etc.
Obviously, no everyone has a smart phone, etc, so will not be able to download it, and not everyone will.
Currently, I think I may delete the app after ?? years (but I will probably have a new phone by then anyway)

PerkingFaintly

Thank you for your links.

I’m embarrassed to say I don’t really understand the pension connection?

Don't be embarrassed, LilacTree1 – you've put your finger on precisely the problem. Viz, why on earth would the Pensions Regulator need RIPA data?

If PR thought a crime was being committed, they could go to the police who would apply for a warrant – or at least need sign off by a designated senior police officer (I've lost track of who needs to sign off what these days). But no, the PR has been given the ability to dip its hand in the data just because... it would like it.

From the article I linked:

Why should the UK pensions watchdog be able to spy on your internet activities? Same reason as the Environment Agency and many more
www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/23/uk_snoopers_charter_sequel/

And lastly, the Pensions Regulator, which checks that companies have added their employees to their pension schemes, need to be able to delve into anyone’s emails so it can “secure compliance and punish wrongdoing.”

Taken together, the requests reflect exactly what critics of the Investigatory Powers Act feared would happen: that a once-shocking power that was granted on the back of terrorism fears is being slowly extended to even the most obscure government agency for no reason other that it will make bureaucrats' lives easier.

None of the agencies would be required to apply for warrants to access people’s internet connection data, and they would be added to another 50-plus agencies that already have access, including the Food Standards Agency, Gambling Commission, and NHS Business Services Authority.

Perking thank you.

The only thing I can think of is that the pensions regulators might think you were committing fraud. So they want data for that?

That would be the biggest waste of time in terms of checking anything, wouldn’t it?

I would have thought it would make bureaucrats’ lives harder, not easier.

I was also baffled why the Food Standards Agency would want data.

An article I read about the South Korean scheme suggested it was intrusive in that you could essentially track the movements of someone newly infected, which train they were on, which coffee shop they visited. But that it was proving very effective.

Societies choice?!

It's known in the industry as the "Poole Council problem", after the council that used RIPA powers to spy on parents to enforce school catchment areas. Other local councils used the anti-terrorist powers to catch dog-fouling and littering.

Spy law 'used in dog fouling war'
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7369543.stm

It's a general problem that, the further down the national security foodchain an organisation is, the less it tends to understand data privacy, and the more gung-ho it tends to be with whatever powers it can get its hands on. Litter-investigators frequently have little grasp of whether their use of surveillance is "proportionate" – a requirement which is enshrined in law but frequently ignored by ignorant councils.

If the Pensions Regulator believed someone was committing fraud, a crime, they could go to the police and push it through the proper channels.

This acts as check on all these little pettifogging departments who might well want to surveil us, but have no grasp of privacy and proportionality and simply can't be feckin' trusted.

Schrödinger’s (Mumsnet) Smartphone:

Where you don’t have a smartphone to download the app.

Go to a shop and buy one? Mumsnet says you should only be shopping for essential food and medicine, not telecommunication devices! What frivolity! You are murdering retail workers buying one! Don’t you know you know that milk isn’t essential, put cheese in your coffee instead and pour water on your cereal!

You can’t buy online as you are murdering distribution staff and couriers.

If you don’t get the app? Then you are murdering old ladies!

🤷🏻‍♀️

Just like in my local co-op store where a one way arrow leads to a dead end yet customers are told to follow the arrows. Guess I’ll just be spinning round and round on the arrow on the floor then.

Perking thank you.

So I’m not being tin foil hat when I say our conversations are being listened to? Does this apply to dumb phones as well?

Thanks for your help with this.

Indeed, NeedMoreSleep.

I'd like it to be an informed choice. For which we'd need to know how effective the UK scheme was (I don't think S Korea depended on just an app).

We'd also need to trust that our data wouldn't be misused.

Or we could accept that our data will almost certainly be misused, but decide that we're not too concerned about these misuses. I mean, if it was only to spam me with Saga holiday ads I'd consider it an OK trade off... If it's to spam us with propaganda to (say) accept disabled people dying of poverty because they're all scroungers anyway... maybe not.

My phone is too full for a new app. What a shame!

Listening? As in, listening to the content of phone calls?

If I understand correctly, the Pensions Regulator has been given access to contents of emails, not permission to listen in to phone calls.

I would make it compulsory. I'm totally baffled by the "I don't like the government knowing what I'm doing". Firstly you are a lot less interesting than you think you at. No one cares that I go to work, the gym, walk the dog and but a chicken for dinner. Secondly you are current on the internet. If you were truly bothered about people not knowing your business you wouldn't go online. Thirdly, I think a lot of people say they don't want to be tracked just to appear political or rebellious.

Perking thank you.

In general, are our phone calls listened to?

Perking sorry to ask so many questions.

Celery “ If you were truly bothered about people not knowing your business you wouldn't go online”

I don’t share my personal info on MN.

I know plenty of people who still won’t bank online or buy online because of the info problem.

My phone doesn't have the capacity for an app so no it won't be happening with me. I do have a work iphone which might be capable except that being a work phone its so locked down unless the company enables the app it won't be happening with that one either.

I know plenty of people who are online anonymously for their own safety. That's not 'tin foil hat', the bad shit has already happened to us.

There's no way you could persuade me to use a smart phone that has my location switched on. There are plenty of women who have left abusive relationships who would be placed in real danger by that.

No I won’t be downloading it.

I will if it helps the cause.

I don't hugely like it, but if the alternatives are either a lot of people dying from Coronavirus or us staying in lockdown (with all the economic implications, plus deaths from untreated conditions like cancer etc) I'm not sure there is another ethical choice.

For those thinking dowloading the app is of no risk at all

www.businessinsider.com/cybersecurity-experts-uk-government-contact-tracing-surveillance-2020-4?fbclid=IwAR0Vo3JczZim0kCZLaGBEinc-D7Kf619fOyqt1V8FK6Mv5oCunf5M-7cue0&r=US&IR=T

170 cybersecurity experts warn that British government's contact tracing app could be used to surveil people even after coronavirus has gone
"It has been reported that NHSX is discussing an approach which records centrally the de-anonymized ID of someone who is infected and also the IDs of all those with whom the infected person has been in contact," the joint letter reads. The experts argue that this data hoard could facilitate "mission creep," i.e. the government could later use the data for purposes other than tracking COVID-19.

This app isn't just a nice thing

No. My husband works in this field and says no. I trust him implicitly.

We don't even carry phones out when we go out. I have a very very old one that has the ability to call in my glove compartment if I get into trouble.

I don't want people tracking me