Where is the bloody app?

[Redolent]

Hmmm let’s see...this weekend we saw massive groups of protestors, in close proximity to other people that they cannot identify, for over 15 minutes. Imagine if there was a way of tracking all the people around them? And then notifying them to self-isolate if they a protestor tests positive? How helpful would that be?

Well it doesn’t look like it’s coming anytime someone. The Google contact tracing app has been available for months. France, like England, developed its own centralised app, but even that was launched last week. Meanwhile we blunder along slowly and belatedly with every single measure. No app before next month.

———————

England has yet to confirm when its own app will roll out nationwide.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock had originally said it would be by 1 June, and then later suggested it would be around the middle of next week.

But the BBC has learned that it is now unlikely to be before 15 June and could be as late as the start of July.

That is in part because of delays in releasing a second version of the software to the Isle of Wight, where it is being trialled.

Soon*

Better to release an imperfect v1 than to delay, especially when the update is ‘including sense of smell as a symptom’.

But this has been a consistent feature of the UK’s misguided response to covid. Waiting and waiting until we have more 'evidence’ before doing something, until the proposed systems are perfect, before rolling with them. On lockdown, masks, quarantine, and now the app.

This might be fine under normal circumstances, but it’s a pandemic, it’s time-sensitive and it demands urgency. We have learnt nothing.

Track and trace would not be much use to protesters unless you took the details of all those within 2 meters.

I suspect you don't get it, but you do realise that this is why so many people will not be using any app when and if it is ever available. You'd be daft to believe that the government can't and won't use it for other purposes.You'd need to trust the them not to be using it, for example, to track who was at what protests and where they were, and who they were with. Personally, I think the protests were ill-judged at this time, but I think giving the government permission to track our every movement is far more dangerous.

@Moondust001

I suspect you don't get it, but you do realise that this is why so many people will not be using any app when and if it is ever available. You'd be daft to believe that the government can't and won't use it for other purposes.You'd need to trust the them not to be using it, for example, to track who was at what protests and where they were, and who they were with. Personally, I think the protests were ill-judged at this time, but I think giving the government permission to track our every movement is far more dangerous.

What do you make of the decentralized model then? Surely that bypasses many of the privacy concerns? Apparently the UK will use it as a ‘backup’ of take up of the NHS one is poor..

—————

“In the decentralized model, an infected person’s phone uploads information about all of the ID numbers it has broadcast over a set time period, typically the last 14 days, to a temporary server. Other phones check that server to see if any of the IDs are among those they have recorded. If one matches, then the app notifies the user.

In the centralized model, the infected person’s phone uploads a list of the ID numbers it has encountered in the set time period. A central server then determines any encounters with infected users. It notifies those exposed but also retains the data...“

@redolent

There is a vast difference between what a "model" says and what it might actually be used for. Let's face it - they managed to accidentally breach GDPR by circulating the email addresses of hundreds of people being trained for track and trace. Their track record on technology and security isn't exactly unblemished, and that is before you wonder what might intentionally happen to all that information people are willingly divulging about themselves.

Personally, I don't give a hoot about what the government knows about me or my opinions or anything else. But there is a worrying principle at stake here about the use of that data. People are worried about their human rights because their kids can't go to school for a few months, but this has the potential to impact on human rights in much more insidious ways. And I have seen many people just on these threads saying explicitly that they won't download it for that reason.

www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/liberty-responds-to-governments-track-and-trace-rollout/

15th June is next Monday

The app does not trace your location. It also doesn’t know who you are.

Bluetooth works through walls.
COVID does not.

Countries that used effective track and trace to control their outbreaks did not use Apps

they used local public sector expertise
and LOTS of local testing
and phone calls and existing data
and CLEAR guiance

all of which have been expressly rejected by the UK government

Just now:

Downing Street said there was “no update” on when the NHS Covid-19 contact-tracing app would be ready for roll-out.