To avoid T or T by turning my phone off when out

[pontypridd]

Pissed off with hypocrisy of government.

I’m playing by the rules and still properly social distancing so there’s no way I’m self isolating for 2 weeks if they call me.

Can turning phones off when out avoid being radarred?

[HeckyPeck]

[quote heartbrokenfool]@gazelda have we?[/quote]
Public Health England estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19. However, the yearly deaths vary widely from a high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19. Public Health England does not publish a mortality rate for the flu.

fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/

[PickUpAPickUpAPenguin]

Remember the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal? We always knew that DC shouldn't be trusted with data but this incident is a reminder not to hand it over.

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

It's people like this who make me scared to go outside and terrified of going back to work

Same here - it's a childish "tit-for-tat" that could end up killing someone.

The man Cummings is a slug; Johnson is cross between Jabba the Hutt and a bucket of wank, and the entire government is beneath contempt.

But they aren't worth dying for.

[99victoria]

This doesn't make sense. If they are not going to use the app but just contact you and ask for details of people you have been in contact with then surely you will only be able to provide details of people you know - friends, family, work colleagues etc. In which case you could (and probably would) have contacted them yourself to let them know you have tested positive. What's the point of having a tracer doing this?

[pontypridd]

This is not tit for tat. I’m not trying to punish anyone.

My instinct is to give it a wide birth. I don’t trust where this country is heading under this government.

[hfrdgftcsdg]

No way I’ll use any app. I will not take a phone out if it ever comes to this.

[sexbearhouse]

@99victoria

This doesn't make sense. If they are not going to use the app but just contact you and ask for details of people you have been in contact with then surely you will only be able to provide details of people you know - friends, family, work colleagues etc. In which case you could (and probably would) have contacted them yourself to let them know you have tested positive. What's the point of having a tracer doing this?

Yep!

Total waste of money.

[Bananabixfloof]

So as a pp pointed out, I go to work next week, where 600 people work, I'm all over the site and in each bit for an hour. I get the call because I've been close to someone with it and self isolate for two weeks, on sick pay?
Then the day I go back the same thing happens.
How long will my employer put up with this?
Will I even have a job after this happening 2/3/4 times?
How do I live on sick pay, its fuck all.
Who will pay my bloody bills?
Who will go collect food for me.

This would work almost well if there were many fewer cases each day. And an app that people trusted.
I wont be downloading the app because trust.


For the really paranoid among us you can buy a faraday cage wallet. Still have phone with you but no signal gets through until you take it out of the wallet.
Never tried one but heard of them.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

But GDPR dictates that personal info cannot be given without consent

No it doesn't, it's simply without appropriate grounds, and public health is of course a grounds - equally that doesn't mean any use of data you can just say is public health, but certainly the information required to trace someone in a pandemic situation seems likely to be reasonable.

Why not the google/apple app?

'cos it's flawed in a different way, it's about the proximity of phones, and the proximity of phones is different to the chance of virus - if a workman sits in a hole outside your house repairing the phone lines for 30 minutes, he'll probably be a "close contact" for phone purposes, but the chance of a virus transfer would be almost nil.

Because of that, you won't actually know if a "G/A" report of a contact is a real one, and there's no-way to actually find out - unless you're one of the people who deliberately de-anonymises your contacts (which you can do with multiple phones and can therefore tell which one is triggered).

This will cause either unreasonable fear and lockdown of you because of contacts that couldn't have done it - what if the only person you though you'd visited was your Gran? It's also much less effective to only be told by a machine that you need to isolate without any context - "You spent an hour in that McD's sat next to your mate John who's just tested positive" is considerably more persuasive than "You've had a contact, we can't tell you when or where as it's all anonymous"

The when is also relevant - going back to the Gran, if you saw your Gran on Monday, knowing that you only had the contact on Tuesday is really important for your fear for your relative, the G/A system makes that more complicated.

Hiding from track and trace is probably okay, you don't need to track everyone to keep the transmission low enough to stop spread, just track most, and social contacts will get most people that matter even if they don't explicitly get you.

But yes, it would've been helpful if the government wasn't so grossly incompetent, but then we got what we voted for.

[Duck90]

The government have no creditably now. I will continue to adhere to social distancing. But I can understand why people will now use their “instinct”

My instinct is to not give them my details. I will Continue not To answer calls from unknown numbers. It’s more likely to be a spam call anyway, to many vulnerable people get caught out by cold callers. Quite scary we are now being told to engage with calls, just incase it’s the gov.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

What's the point of having a tracer doing this?

You'll also tell them you spent had lunch in McD's they can then find members of other groups who also had lunch in McD's at the same time - those are the extra contacts that can be identified. Or the buses you were on (which is why oyster / card data is more useful in London than an app)

Remember the highest transfers are indoor unventilated places, so where you meet strangers in those conditions are where tracers can add value.

[itsgettingweird]

I don't get how some people can give the names and contact details of all the people they have had contact with in a time period.

Did you see Durdle door on Monday?

The biggest risks seem to be coming from overcrowded outside spaces.

[jasjas1973]

GDPR regs are an EU thing, we can ditch it at will, offers zero protection, we are all taking johnson on trust with their app..

No one else is making their own, they have apps designed with google and apple who won't allow their platform to host a centralised DB... wonder why?

[sexbearhouse]

You'll also tell them you spent had lunch in McD's they can then find members of other groups who also had lunch in McD's at the same time

Honestly not being goady. How will the T & T bods know the names, phone numbers etc of randomers who happened to be in Mc Ds the same time as me? I don't get it

[Tootletum]

Sorry wtf?? T&T is literally the only way we are getting out of this bollocks. Yes of course the government are a bunch of hypocrites, that doesn't mean this will all just get better if you decide to shoot us all in the foot.

[jasjas1973]

@sirfredfredgeorge That would require cross checking on an unprecedented scale.....and all done manually.... would require a small army, not 25k relatively unskilled recruits... will never happen.

We can't even get test results back within a week or PPE to care homes.

[NELass]

It’s nothing whatsoever to do with the app. I’m going to be working on it and it’s details given to us by someone who has tested positive. Please don’t start abusing us down the phone because you think the Tories are stealing your details. It’s nothing to do with them either. It’s public health England.

[PhilCornwall1]

Can turning phones off when out avoid being radarred?

What?? The app, which is not being used as there are issues with it, doesn't work that way. It works using BlueTooth and you have to give the app permission. That's assuming you've downloaded it.

I've had the app ever since it was released for testing (I'm not on the Isle of Wight) and have been dicking about with it seeing what actually goes out from your phone.

The T & T that is going live this week has more holes in it than a sieve and I can't really see it being of any use.

[sexbearhouse]

@NELass

It’s nothing whatsoever to do with the app. I’m going to be working on it and it’s details given to us by someone who has tested positive. Please don’t start abusing us down the phone because you think the Tories are stealing your details. It’s nothing to do with them either. It’s public health England.

Ooh! Goodie!

What happens if the person you keep calling doesn't answer their phone?

Can you really trace random people we may have caught a train with or may have been in Burger King the same time as us ?

So many questions!!

[Tedgy]

it's flawed in a different way,

Totally incorrect.

Both apps collect data using bluetooth signal strengths. The difference is that with the nhs app, the data is held on a central server, whereas google/apple app holds the data on the phone.

[StrawberryJam200]

No you don't have to take part. But if the majority make that decision, many more will die, maybe even someone you love, and we'll revert to total lockdown - and the second time it might be like Spain etc, where not even exercise is allowed.

Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson both said today that if they find people are not self isolating when asked to do so, they may have to consider fines. I think they should do that from the start, but maybe, as a PP implied, that would be too much of a disincentive to download the app.

It uses Bluetooth not WiFi so you don't need to have data.

[NELass]

If they don’t answer the phone, we call 3 more times and send out text messages and e-mails for you to complete the questionnaire online. You should get these before you get the call. If you don’t complete, that’s when we phone up

[steppemum]

OK, this is what was said today (I was listening)

THEY ARE NOT USING THE APP. (the tests on Isle of Wight haven't been great)

1. if you have symptoms you must get tested.
   
2. Then you must self isolate at home for 7 days.
   
3. You will be phoned up by an NHS track and tracer. They will ask you for all the people you have been in contact with for the last few days. You need ot have spent 15 minutes in their company without PPE.
   
4. The tracedr will then phone all those people and tell them they have been exposed
   
5. Those people are expected to drop everything and go home. They must self isolate at home for 14 days.
   

He was asked several times if the 14 days is mandatory, and enforeable by law. He fudged the answer and said that it was your moral duty etc. (Pity no-one told DC that)

It is not law, he did NOT say that there would be fines.

he also did not address the tricky question of employment and whether you would be entitlted to be paid while isolating.

[sexbearhouse]

Thanks @NELass

What about tracing people you have been in contact with but don't know - like the train or restaurant example? We would need an app for that, right?

[StrawberryJam200]

Neither system (human tracers/any app) is perfect and can trace all contacts, but, if they're both operating and enough people are using them and isolating when required, and people are still following social distancing guidance, it gives us a really good fighting chance. See all the countries who had similar systems from the beginning and have had low death rates.