UKH

Quite apart from the concern for data to get into wrong hands. It's just come to my attention what might entail data in the 'right' hands.

case1) you have the app, you get the virus - others around you (friends/not) are ordered into confinement; for all the range of symptoms/asymptomatic

case2) you you have no app, but are apprehended in proximity to someone who does; swift orders to isolate yourself !

such interactions could be esp stressful to family relations ex. a child is apprehended, you get a choice (?) that it is isolated in a state security facility (prison !) or the whole family must go into isolation - a threat to your family economics ?

I'd imagine it's a bit pointless. The same people who probably won't wash hands properly before using a multitude of doors, won't use the app or carry their phone. 

It's just a result of backing itself into a lock down corner. All these proposed work place rules, designed more to convince a nation it's safe to work, as slow any future spread. If these proposed rules are sufficient to stop any spread, then they just disproved the need to lock down fully in the first place and could have just run offices with 50% staffing etc. 

Firstly in Singapore a similar Ap failed to get close to 80% levels of coverage it needed to do what it says on the tin. I'm far from conviced 80% of brits have a smart phone at all times. I rarely carry mine with me when out and about in the city.

Secondly I think everyone needs to be careful about companies with unclear positions on Privacy. We could have chosen to use the Google/Apple Ap as most other countries.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/29/uk-privacy-and-security-experts-warn-over...

https://www.techworld.com/security/privacy-concerns-raised-by-covid-19-symp...

Matt Hancock claims on the news this am the Ap will 'help us get our Liberty back' and its irresponsible not to use it. He says most countries don't have an NHS so the special Ap is better for us. Why won't he be responsibly honest about what is happening with the data then?

I'm amazed how many people trust our government on proper scrutiny on data use and public private contracts given what has been happening:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confident...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/04/uk-government-using-crisis...

The comments about NCSC involvement in the Techcrunch article are... interesting. GCHQ/NCSC aren't just 'spooks'; they also advise on how to maintain cyber security. Poacher/gamekeeper, etc.

In terms of data getting into the wrong hands, you’re probably a few years too late there I’m afraid. You know all those apps that ask for access to your location? They already sell that on in a largely unregulated market. Journalists with leaked copies have demonstrated that with no specialist knowledge they could track government officials, their families, police, and anyone else to their homes, schools, etc. All they needed to identify an individual was a few confirmed places that person had been at certain times in order to pick out the matching GPS trace. Any outrage against public health officials having the same data feels a bit rich after it’s already been handed over without question to Facebook, candy crush, and lord knows who else.

In terms of the stress and impact of isolating families, surely that’s also already an issue since a) if a family member is ill the whole household should be self isolating for 2 weeks anyway and b) nationwide lockdown? If the alternatives are things like repeated waves of nation- or region wide lockdowns then I’d suggest those are also pretty stressful interpersonally and economically.

I’ll acknowledge though that I’ve not read much about the plans so don’t know the specific details

Edit: I see there are some points above about who is actually in possession of the data that may invalidate my first point rather. I’ll have a read! Although the horse has probably still already bolted with regards to location data collection sadly. 

Might as well install it. You can never be too sure.

I won't be installing it. It's open to far too much abuse. If someone gets symptoms, and everyone they've been near goes in to isolation, are they then updated if a test comes back negative? How will it stop people falsely reporting symptoms? 

God knows I'm no apologist for this government but aren't you being a bit quick off the mark? Maybe they HAVE anticipated dealing with false positives; maybe testing will be widespread enough that symptoms can be confirmed before alerts are issued; maybe the data is sufficiently anonymised so that it is not particularly useful to hackers.

The sooner we can get back to the new normal the better, and unless somebody can point to genuine reasons why this is counter-productive or dangerous from a civil liberties point of view I'll give it a go.  

I’d like to know if it can resolve height differences down to individual floors. If not then those of us working in hospitals are a bit screwed especially if your office is 2 floors above ICU.

Maybe when such questions are answered, I'll install it. But I'm not holding my breath!

I consider myself a clean person but I wont be using the app. What an odd connection to make, that ones personal hygiene habits inform their likelihood to consent to state run mass surveillance. Even more so that those who dont wash hands would not carry a mobile (or those that do, would).

Can't install it on my Nokia brickphone so I'm not going to worry about it.

Presumably if it uses Bluetooth rather than gps then that is partially solved - my Bluetooth struggles with anything much more than 1 wall in the way. I’d have thought 2 floors would probably be a fair way out of range. I’ve no idea if it can be tweaked to ensure that a signal penetrating e.g. a wall separating two parallel but unconnected corridors is not recorded as a contact though.

In fact, now I think of it a bigger concern might be driving to work. I know that in traffic jams my phone is usually able to register Bluetooth signals from several surrounding cars.  Would these be registered as a point of contact if someone in a separate car had stopped beside me at traffic lights for a couple minutes?

Maybe you should turn your phone off when driving? Win win!

Quite - and would also include driving past pedestrians and what if you were next to a railway line as a train went past? Normally, I'd guess that the difference in relative speed would make the contact time too small to be a risk, but there's a level crossing near me that's at the end of the station platform, so if I happened to be standing there waiting to cross as a train pulled in/out of the station, it could record a vast number of false contacts.

What if I was in 1 building and it picked up a contact from someone next door?

Bluetooth class 2 range is specified as 10m, and generally 5-10m in practice, but could be further depending on the device and environment and, as suggested, could record false positives with no possibility of actual contact.

I was using one of the apps that you just log daily and say whether you've been tested/had symptoms, but then my phone drowned and I've not used it since.

The connection is that those who aren't minded to wash hands, probably don't care about the potential benefits an app may provide. 

Shop windows, partition walls..  you could be in a different room with zero shared air and theoretically look like you are within 2m. 

Do you use Strava or google maps or any mapping on your phone?

Nice try, but did I say I was worried about my movements being tracked?

I haven't seen a detailed explanation of how the App works, but I had gathered that it would only register contact if you were close for quite a long time, 10-15 mins for example. So hopefully that would stop spurious contacts from being stopped in traffic lights etc. It might miss possible contacts from walking past someone at the exact moment they sneeze, but I guess small 'false negative' is deemed better than the overwhelming false positives you'd get if every person you'd walked near in the past week was contacted.

Citation needed.  

I hope you wash you hands after clutching those straws.

I wash my hands. I care about the potential benefits. I wont be downloading the app.

Worth a shot anyway..lol.

As Hancock said  just because you have an app you should maintain 2 m etc etc. I assume that is part of the field test, do people ignore the other guidelines.

Bit pointless if we all forget to wash our hands etc.

In answer to your question though, yes, I do use Strava and mapping apps. 

My problem lies in being told to isolate because some chav I passed in the street decided to have a laugh with his mates and tell the app he was feeling a bit unwell, and the knock on effect of that with all my friends and family that I might've seen (once such restrictions are eased/lifted). 

Ha, I wondered if someone would call me on that. For the sake of clarifying doubts about my road safety, I know my phone picks up other Bluetooth signals in traffic from trying to connect my phone to someone else’s car radio whilst I am a passenger in their car. 

Bluetooth is on in the car because phone is often connected to radio for music or sat nav instructions. If satnav it’s set up before leaving and put on dash. If just music it goes in the glove box to avoid temptation to change the playlist. Phone automatically goes onto Do Not Disturb when connected to the car so no risk of phone calls or texts popping up. 

All relevant laws and safety advice complied with to the best of my knowledge. 

I am guessing but I assume that unless you have been within 2 metres of said chav then you will be OK. So you could take countermeasures so to speak to try and avoid that .Also the system will I guess work better with the contact tracers who will probably phone you up and talk it through before asking you to self isolate. Presumably chav hotspots with false info could  be identified

Questions but no real answers at the mo.

Just discovered there's a blog post here: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/security-behind-nhs-contact-tracing-app that explains how the app works.

They are using bluetooth signal strength as a proxy for 'distance of contact' and have some calibration depending on your phone model. They don't spell out exactly what will count as a 'risky encounter' but they do go on to say that they will do some sensible follow ups, e.g.

"So, the device’s owner has been identified as ‘feeling unwell’, and we have a list of devices that have been in ‘risky contact’ with that same device. We use our notification system to get those devices to notify their users and ask them to self-isolate for a couple of days[4]. Then one of four things could happen, depending on health policy:

* You get a clinical test and test negative. In this case, your contacts are told that it was a false notification.

* You get a clinical test and test positive. In this case, your contacts are asked to isolate for 14 days, and get them into the clinical testing path.

* You don’t get a test, but too few of your contacts report symptoms to statistically suggest that you were probably infectious. Your contacts are told they don’t need to continue to isolate.

* You don’t get a test, but enough of your contacts report symptoms to statistically suggest that you were probably infectious. Your contacts are told they need to continue to isolate."

 

The blog I quoted says some automated things can be done, e.g. if none of the 'spurious false reporting chav's contacts go on to report symptoms then it will be identified as probable false positive and all those contacts will be told it was a false positive. So that saves them from a full 14-day isolation.

I don't see that it's going to work, but I'm curious about the app, would like to be pulling in the right direction, I'm irritated about the data control and the "we know better than google and apple" thing, and I'm suspicious about motives and data 'leakage', so I'm thinking about installing the app on an old work discard phone. This seems to cover most all the bases.

I would like to see the source code available for public examination however; or, given that there is very little chance of that happening, at least an independent review.

For all the reasons posted above, traditional contact tracing is still going to be the primary means of control, and hopefully the app will add a few more data points. I say, try to be public-spirited!

I have an extremely old Nokia "pay as you go" phone, probably well over 25 years old. Only bought it for occasional use when on trips/mountaineering - "I'm off the mountain and safe, gone to the pub" or "I'm at Hathersage cafe, when are you arriving" sort of calls. Now carry it when away from the house, but only switch it on and use in case of vehicle breakdown or other emergency.

Bad reception at home, switched off when on the motorbike, can't carry it at work, and the battery is nothing like a modern phone anyway. Had a landline for over 35 years.

If the government want us to carry a smartphone all day long, then they're going to have to give a few million of us such a smartphone - who's going to deal with that ?

Yes, you're right there - what difference is there to current reactions of 'the right thing to do' .

Some differences of app use are simply psychological - the surprise element of being informed that by chance - you were in the wrong place at the wrong time; and otherwise - digital snitching - that we become instruments in state surveillance, albeit for a noble purpose. 

Anyway, if the whole thing can be defeated by switching your phone off - then we have a choice. I reckon it might soon become part of polite (!) conversation at the crag, and might well help us to keep our distance - we may quickly know whether our mates are tracking active, but what for other crag users ? 

Doesn't everybody turn the Bluetooth off unless using it for hands-free in the car?  It halves your battery life if you leave it on. 

My Bluetooth and location services are turned off as default. I never use Bluetooth and only use location if necessary for maps.

I just leave it on personally - I use quite a few things on a regular basis that are bluetooth connected. Too much faff to keep turning it on and off. I'd turn it off if I expected to be away from a power source for more than a day, but for normal daily use battery life has never been enough of an issue for me to worry about bluetooth in that regard.

I heard something this morning saying measures had been taken to reduce battery drain. I have no idea how truthful this is or whether it is even possible to "throttle" bluetooth battery drain when designing an app.

What I'm about to say is based on what I've gleaned from the internet. I'm not a technical expert at all, but it sounds quite disturbing to me, and raises a lot of questions. The gist of it is this: first, it's not an #NHS app; it's a Vote Leave app whose contract was handed to some friends of Cummings without any tendering process. The promise that the NCSC's involvement 'has been limited to an advisory role' sounds weak and unconvincing to me. Further: this UK system will not be compatible with the Apple/Google one that the EU are supporting. Apple/Google claim that their "decentralised" system - where the matches take place on users' handsets - provides greater security and makes it difficult for governments to track specific individuals. Whereas our/Cummings' instigated system, is centralised.

This is an interesting point. Be interesting to see how people react to this versus a broad strokes lockdown. I could imagine that people might feel more aggrieved if the app tells them to isolate and start looking for someone to blame or direct their frustration at (e.g. "I bet it was Dillon's fault when he stopped me to talk the other day - the thoughtless, selfish so-and-so"). It might be easier to see something like a lockdown as "we're all in this together" and no-one's fault specifically.

I'm not sure that is a particularly good argument against the app if it was sufficiently helpful in allowing restrictions to be eased, but an interesting and relevant consideration nonetheless.

Personally  i wouldn't use ir at all. Way to easy to abuse and really dont see it making that much  difference  in a long run. But if dowloading meant  i can go out the house more thsts  s bit different

though I'm opposed to overcollection of data in principle I would have downloaded it if I had a smartphone and a phone ISP because of the seriousness of the current situation.  That is a pretty remote possibility, however, unless I come into money.

I think it is very shortsighted of the NHS to use a system that is not interoperable with what other states are doing.

Bit more complicated than that.Say you visit Thailand on holiday , still able to do this.. They insist you download their local app so a bit of a waste to have interoperability.

I suspect most countries will want you to use their local app.

Don't you already have the ChavAlert app that allows you to avoid this danger?

Yes, who would you trust for a reliable IT solution, Google and Apple or the NHS?

Apart from the chances of it actually working, Apple in particular has a good track record when it comes to personal data security, even when it brings them into conflict with law enforcement.

I used to think that, but I can't see any measureable battery drain with Bluetooth LE regardless of if it's on or off.

I wouldn't, hypothetically, be using the app by then even if it were possible I'd be going so far afield.  Problems have been mentioned at the Irish border in particular which is a somewhat more likely scenario for incompatible apps/phones to meet.

Gordon has reminded me of the extremely smelly connection with the infowarriors and that makes me very glad I don't have to make a decision to use the software or not.  So I can conserve some mental energy and equanimity from that freedom.

I occasionally use a Bluetooth speaker and in the car, but that's it.

I have an app on my phone - Llama - that is location aware (tracks which masts it's using) and turns Bluetooth off when I get home, as the likelihood is I've been using it in the car. Not clever enough to recognise when I leave home in the car to turn it on, though, so I have to do that manually. Also turns off mobile data when I get home and turns wi-fi on and off accordingly - I tend to only turn data on when I'm out if I actually need it for something specific.

One thing I've not seen mentioned obviously is memory use and how the data gets pushed back to the server - apart from Bluetooth, it's going to require a data link to achieve that.

It's going to have to log contacts on the phone memory and sync with the server periodically via wi-fi or mobile data. If you're a long time between connections, that could be a huge amount of data, depending on exactly what's being logged.

I can imagine a European standard coming into play here---- Oh wait, we have blown that route

That is an entirely legitimate concern. Not just for the questionable nature of the company, but also (maybe even more so) for the questionable nature of government contracting.

Are you obliged to lock down if called on to do so via the app?  Even if you know full well that you weren't in any risk from the encounter 'they' have identified?  The Covid-19 legislation has provisions for arresting people who knowingly endanger themselves or others with covid, so I would expect the answer to be 'Yes'- as soon as you are aware of the 'potential' of exposure you are obliged by law to isolate.

This, in my opinion, is all the more reason not to download the app and cede all you personal liberty to the government, more than they have already stripped with the current corona laws. as others have mentioned, there is little faith that the technology is accurate enough to eliminate false positives in terms of contact.  The risk of abuse by the government and potential for fines, arrest for no good reason are too great.

Good faith and community spirit has got us this far, but I have heard many people grumbling about the UK becoming a county of Gestapo already, with people dobbing each other in, cursing, tutting and shouting at each other about 'the rules' not knowing even half of the details of the other persons situation- I myself got tutted at by another cyclist while out with my wife- as we were sitting too close.

It would be too easy to go down a scary route with all this, and I don't think this app serves to do anything other than expedite that. Freedoms surrendered are hard to win back.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" Benjamin Franklin

The Apple/Google solution isnt actually a solution. They provide an API which someone else is still going to plug into.

It also really isnt the NHS. They are just the branding. Since it seems to involve the likes of Palantir I would be giving it a miss.

Only when they know the authorities will be kept in check to some degree. In China for example say goodbye to that personal data security.

I think the Australian app has a lot of safeguards. If tried & tested, we really should buy it off the shelf and plagiarise the legislation.

Under the control of the phone owner. 

"This digital handshake information, which does not include any identifiable data, is all recorded on the phone. It is uploaded to the highly secure information storage system when consent is given by a positively diagnosed user."

Malicious usage unlikely as it requires a positive Covid test.

"You only need to press the ‘Upload my information’ button at the bottom of the screen in your COVIDSafe app, if you have tested positive for coronavirus.

You will not be able to upload your information unless a state or territory health official contacts you. They will give you the PIN you need to upload your information and help you with the process."

Data deleted from local storage on phone as quickly as possible.

"The app uses a rolling 21 day window to allow for the maximum 14 day incubation period, and the time taken to confirm a positive test result. The rolling 21 day window allows the app to continuously note only those user contacts that occur during the coronavirus incubation window. Contacts that occurred outside of the 21 day window are automatically deleted from the user’s phone."

Purely voluntary

"What’s the penalty for trying to force someone to download the app?

Contravening an emergency determination made by the Minister for Health under the Biosecurity Act 2015 is a criminal offence punishable by a maximum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment, or a fine."

Purely for health reasons

" The only other access will be by the COVIDSafe Administrator to ensure the proper functioning, integrity and security of COVIDSafe, including to delete your registration information at your request. It will be a criminal offence to use any app data in any other way. The COVIDSafe app cannot be used to enforce quarantine or isolation restrictions, or any other laws."

Central database deleted after pandemic

"The information contained in the information storage system will also be destroyed at the end of the pandemic."

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/apps-and-tools/covidsafe-app/covidsafe-...

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/apps-and-tools/covidsafe-app#resources-...

Has the UK government published anything like that covering privacy and data protection? 

No, even chavs have civil liberties  

Good to see it's going to be open source but there are major flaws:

From the GCHQ link:

"NHSX systems don’t build a social graph in the traditional sense, although they do have pairwise proximity events for anonymous identities."

Right, so to be clear it does have the data needed to construct a social graph.

"Of course, at some point, you have to be identified to the NHS, for example to get a clinical test. If that happens through the app, the system uses a privacy preserving gateway to be able to link a test to an app Installation ID anonymously, but not the Installation ID to a person’s identity or NHS record. Of course, someone who has access to all three systems can link you, but by design no-one does."

No, not of course! Sorry. And pretty easy to design out this problem.

"The cyber security monitoring of the system keeps logs which include IP address, but they're strictly access controlled and are only accessible to the cyber security team looking after the app system."

Also a major problem and harder to get rid of, particularly in a provable way. There may be a role for a TTP administering the load balancing rather than the govt who sadly brought us illegal dragnet surveillance.

You were the fellow who rejoiced in being sent home from work the day you returned from a ski trip with a sniffle, while claiming, persistently I recall, the whole CV-19 "panic" was a storm in a tea-cup.

I do take you point on creeping limits to liberty. But, as far as I can tell from my study of https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/security-behind-nhs-contact-tracing-app the app remains anonymised up until the point you take a test because you are ill or at risk, the results of which immediately and decisively define your subsequent moral and legal obligations to family, friends, colleagues and the general population.

We are more than a month into a lockdown that should have impressed on everyone's consciousness that something serious is afoot. A lockdown that, if protracted, could destroy everyone's livelihood and end many lives. Yet, you reject the community use of an app that might help the nation out of this hole. And for the reason that you might find yourself forced not to spread infection to others. You'd rather fight efforts to escape a second wave than switch your bluetooth on.

A concern of mine, if I may put my sensible hat on for a moment, is how will this app effect front line staff who are exposed to contagious people as part of their jobs? Will they all be asked to self isolate?

Given that it’s so important it kinda makes you wonder why our government didn’t go the route of 99% of the other countries in the world and as a happy side effect neutralise a lot of the criticism this app is getting, doesn’t it?

I’m not saying I won’t use it, but I will be looking for further 3rd party assessments before I would.  

Edit: For clarity, I mean some 3rd party assessments that come back with a positive opinion rather than the current crop of ‘er, this smells a bit funny’.

Replying to myself because I’ve just seen this in the BBC article about the app:

’Another discovery is that the developers have taken into account the fact some users will sometimes be wearing personal protective equipment.

A section marked "important instructions for healthcare workers" tells says to turn off Bluetooth "when you put on your PPE".’

Lucky Bluetooth is used for nothing else aside from this app, isn’t it. It’s sounding like more of a dogs dinner by the second.

That might be how they deal with Agar Jelly's question.

That also kind of answers my question, ta.

You only need it on when you're out and about or amongst others outside your household bubble, battery life isn't going to be a problem for 99.999% of users.

Alternatively this app could be part of what restores lots of freedom to people much sooner.  The Franklin quote doesn’t really cover trading a little liberty now for a lot of Liberty later.

I’m groaning inside at the news I read that we aren’t using the Google/Apple solution but centralising through the NHS.  Not impressed.

What are people doing with Bluetooth when they've got PPE on? If you've got PPE on you're working.

How much of a social graph do you think you'll be able to build that will identify anyone? All it will know is you were close to persons a,b, & c at time xx:yy for 15 minutes, and person d at time vv:ww for 20 minutes.

They still won't know who you are though.

Out of all the people you know (who will be leaving their house), what percentage don't have a smartphone?

I use mine to send live traffic updates to my satnav.

No rejoicing from me. I was bemoaning the overreaction. At that time the reaction was very much storm in a teacup. 

If you wish to believe that the data is anonymous then that's your perogative.may I remind everyone who is so willing to trust this government that not 5 months ago were the same people deriding the same government for being totally untrustworthy. This is also the same team behind targeting ads to affect the outcome of the brexit vote. Remember how that went down... And that was only a little bit of data mining. Imagine what they'll do with this lot!

I agree that we should endeavour to end this lockdown as soon as possible but giving away more freedom to do so is not the answer.

Your combative response to my post suggests the government is getting exactly what they want. Blind faith in their efforts. This app at the moment... But what next? That's the problem. 

Its just some people couldn’t see the storm at the time.

Maybe.

Consider this scenario. The app works great. So great that the virus is controlled and life can return to some form of normality. The government now sees the benefit of the app and determines that its in the best interests of the nation to continue its use for terrorism tracking, health blah blah blah. They need a high uptake for this to work and in the face of people starting to delete the app they pass a law requiring people to have it in order to access certain public locations. 

It's not too far down that path that we get to police asking for your papers (access to to your app) and the government has unlimited access to your comings and going all in the name of protecting others. 

Youmight think that's far fetched. I really don't given this government's previous. I hope even if you disagree you can see its a valid concern? 

Data to be logged - date, time & 10 digit ID of contact every 5 minutes.  If you had 7 days worth of 24hour data with one contact per 5 minutes that comes out as a 63.5kB CSV file.  There's not going to be huge amounts of data.  People aren't going to go huge lengths of time between connections because they'll want to know if they've been in contact with a carrier anyway.

I think they already have this kind of thing in place for tracking terrorism - only it’s not anonymous, it probably has a lot of location data, it cross connects with banking records, CCTV and APNR, and it comes with handy automatic transcription of phone calls etc.  

If you've got nothing to hide.... Right? That's the normal response to these sort of things. 

I never thought I'd be aligning myself with gun toting tea party redneck Americans. But I'm feel myself getting very close to wanting to chant with them. 

The countries most successful bin tackling C19 so far have been the ones that have aggressively used contact tracing. 

Until someone tells me how we can relax lockdown safely without employing contact tracing I'll be allowing the government access to information about myself that I wouldn't normally give them. When it's all over I'll remove the app and expect the government to delete it's data base.

The worst thing that could happen if I don't use this app is that I could kill someone.

What's the worst thing that can happen if I do use it?

See above for outcome. 

It's not an either or. You've reacted exactly how the government wanted you to. They are pitching it as a you vs them. If you don't download the app you will be responsible for killing little dorris down the road. 

This view seems to presuppose that the options available are the app or “okay everyone, everything’s back to normal”. That’s not the choice on offer. 

Every choice is coming with some restriction of our usual liberties, it’s just a case of which is least worst and still manages infection levels. Between a choice of targeted 2 week isolations based on likely risk versus blunt lengthy lockdowns of whole areas I think the former is probably ceding the least liberty overall by a large margin. 

And your wish for it to be up to the end user to decide if they were really at risk wouldn’t work at all. I don’t know your background, but most of the population are really not qualified to make sensible infection control decisions. They (we) are, however, very good at making decisions based on “but I don’t wanna stay home, it’s boring so it’s probably fine really if it’s just me that ignores it” which won’t end well.

That’s not to say there aren’t questions to be asked but I think the “but Freedom” argument is overstretching given that the aim of the app is to help safely return some of your freedoms to you. 

Why do you suggest that those are the only two options? 

I don’t. I suggest that you were presenting a false choice between the options of “freedom” or “cede all your personal liberty to the government”. Both sides of your proposed choice seem pretty well divorced from the reality of the current situation. 

I never turn it off. Why would you? Personally I don't buy a smartphone full of technology that would have been sci-fi half a generation ago in order to micromanage everything it does. I want it to work when I get in the car and I want my headphones to work when I put them in, as two examples.

Also, if the best solution they can come up with for how to flag times when you're not vulnerable is to turn the thing off, that doesn't inspire confidence for all the other scenarios people have mentioned where you might come in bluetooth contact with someone's device without being at risk of contamination from them.

I have been in two minds as to what to do and I've decided that I won't be downloading the app.

This Goverment have a track record of using data to influence elections with lies  and I dont trust them not to use this data for the same purposes.

Unfortunately a large part of the country have decided to ignore a proven track record of lies so they can cheer in their man and the result is significant distrust in the government. 

This means that theres probably enough people out there that won't download to ensure it doesnt  actually work and although this is not the outcome I want its probably the one we deserve as a country...

Good point. Here in France we expect to emerge from lockdown on the 11th May, some variation in regional restrictions, trending back to normal with appropriate monitoring. No suggestion of mandatory tracking.

Who is promoting these tracking systems as necessary ? In the UK The chain of Nightingale hospitals were largely unused - evidence of gross over-estimations which were made of the epidemic. The counts are falling, people will report to their doctors as before. From where comes the fear which drives the idea that we need tracking ? 

Are you a bot?

According to an article in The Register: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/ the app only really works when it is the foreground task and the phone is unlocked. That sounds like it's going to limit the effectiveness somewhat.

If you're working with PPE on, your phone is probably in your locker - turning Bluetooth off would negate it thinking you contacted anyone else within 10m of your locker when you're elsewhere.

Fair enough - I didn't have the data and hadn't done the calculations earlier.

The app is all but pointless unless used to direct a limited testing capacity. If everyone could be tested frequently we'd do that instead. Otherwise, being deemed at risk without testing essentially puts you into endless isolation of what, 7-14 days as recommended, or a month+ for potential symptomless illness. So being at risk, which will likely happen to most people, pulls you forward to a test at which point you are identified. It's then taken on trust that this won't (ever) be linked to the apps datastore (they're saying the data will be kept indefinitely).

Yes, over a period of time, a pretty powerful social graph, provided voluntarily and unecessarily (if you agree it could be better anonymised).

You are being too kind, it's a pig's ear.

I'm strongly in favour of tech solutions to measure social distancing but I really hope the Scottish Government is not pressured into adopting this one by Westminster and buys something from a reputable tech company instead.  The default would be Google and Apple.

The UK government's supplier's 'qualification' is being associated with Vote Leave, being mates with Cummings and having a Tory cabinet minister as a shareholder.   The only thing they are well known for in the tech industry is obtaining by deception and misusing Facebook data on an industrial scale.  

This smells like the same kind of sh*t as the ventilator challenge: going with inexperienced people who accept a grossly unrealistic brief rather than trying to understand why the credible suppliers say it will take longer or should be done differently.

I'm not convinced the UK app can be made to work  well.  The 'natural' range of Bluetooth is way more than 2m so presumable they will want to use received signal strength as a metric for range rather than just log every Bluetooth connection.  But it won't be as simple as that because there are many different phones with different chips, different antennas, some customers put them in cases and some keep them in a bag or beside metal objects like keys.  Determining the 2m spacing is going to be way harder for phones than it would be for a standard badge worn outside clothing.  There's potential for a huge amount of false positives - e.g. you go to the gym but leave your phone in your bag and a lot of people approach your bag while they are putting their own stuff away.    Apple and Google will have the people and equipment for testing thousands of different scenarios to get a robust solution, a random UK IT startup will not.

Further - and this could be a show stopper - according to the tech press Apple and Google don't let you transmit IDs with the Bluetooth chip from an app which is in the background.  It needs to be foreground and screen on.   That's not practical for an app that's going to be on all day because it will chew through battery.    Only Google and Apple could write low level O/S code to bypass the security restrictions in the API they present to 'user' apps.  

Aside from they arent providing a solution they are providing an API to use in a solution. Someone else is always going to need to bolt on the front end.

Apple would be able to test it. For android though, in reality, its going to be horrendously hard for anyone to test it properly. Too many different variations and companies selling gear. Its always going to be the main ones only picked up.

that is going to be problematic.

Those are the two options we are being presented. They aren't the only options. As I said, the governments tactics are working.  Make it binary and then you can say "if you don't download this tracking app you will be responsible for killing Dorris).  What other option are they giving us?

I'm afraid I'll never live my life tied to a smarty, waiting for a tixt or ploying gaymes, at the back and cull of rindom collars with little to say.  I'd rather carry around an Acorn System 1.  Thas nivva ginna tak my loaf over.

Seems an odd name for a company.  Wasn't the important thing about palantirs that you couldn't necessarily trust what they showed you?  It depended who had control of them. 

 "What other option are they giving us?"

There should be at least a third option: if you don't use it social distance and save Doris.

Having looked into it a bit more I think I wouldn't touch this politicised app if it was even applicable in my case.  We seem to live in the age of government proprietary tech - cf the need for an android device or very modern apple phone to be able to apply for settles status - it all stinks

I promise I wont go anywhere near any old people- can I go outside now?

who you calling old?

Quite reasonably until tested and verified negative. That's how this works, it's how we live with this. It's basically what we're all doing now but without a way out. In future, hopefully not forever some of us will be in this position some of the time, the more effectively we manage this the fewer that'll be for less and less time. We'll have to collectively support those finding themselves in this position for their welfare and ours.

What is meant by forced is debatable. To work well I suspect we require some degree of carrot and or stick. Carrot is more the British way so I guess having a clear app as a passport to enhanced services (Cafes, pubs etc) might be tried first before any coercion.

Nonsense. Ordered by whom and how?

So is life now. So is the total economic collapse we've precipitated. So is getting seriously ill, passing it on to others who may die... There are no good options.

Prison is hyperbolic nonsense but the option of a sanitarium for infected individuals to reduce the risk of family transmission would likely help keep R and the death toll down while potentially throwing a lifeline to the hotel industry.

None of this has to be 100% effective, it just has to get R low enough that the current epidemic effectively dies out and any new clusters are quickly contained.

It sounds to me that you want your old life back. Me too. That's not happening, it's gone.

jk

I guess we do the best we can with what we have.

British exceptionalism meets the creepy f***ers behind the brexit data scandal. This seems like a massive own goal to me, as ever reinventing square wheels because we're the best at wheels and have been since 1760.

I do wonder how thin this government will wear our trust before they realise the lie, deflect, scapegoat approach which got them to power won't see them through 4 more years of this.

jk

pretty much yes and when you look at the company it seems like they decided to do some truth in advertising. Wouldnt trust anything they worked on as far as I could throw it.

I'd assume prolonged contact with a strong signal would be used to determine a possible human contact. Weak and transient connections will probably be ignored.

In principal that should be easy enough to deal with, it can make a very well informed guess as to when you're on foot, on a bike or in a vehicle then apply special case rules. Busses, trains and car-share seem a bigger issue if all likely vehicular 'contact' is simply blocked, I suspect a more sophisticated rule set might be applied. I don't suppose it'll always get it right at the fringes but it should be possible to establish a balance between over and under-sensitivity in which we can build some trust. As we simply won't ever know in the case of stranger contact where that phone-phone contact occurred or even who with then that trust gets built by: generating few false positives, managing those it does generate very promptly with easy access rapid testing, and by catching enough true contacts that we see the epidemic well contained. Openness about the logic and data flow would help too. Is this deliverable? let's hope.

jk

How can you place any trust at all in a government that thinks it is all right to do this (again the analogy of our local council chief who saw nothing wrong in he and his wife getting the council recycling contract)?????

I think I'm going in the hills for my own health avoiding everyone else.

Thats not the 1st time you have failed to see my hyperbole as humeur noire - so knowing you are present perhaps I should refrain from such. My words were basically an attempt to portray disruption to family relations which might ensue trackng detection - and I'm happy to note that most others read it in it's correct context. 

Furthermore it's the kind of journalistic exaggeration which has got us into this situation - namely n which we are are all scared to return to normal because someone has convinced us we are in mortal danger if we don't conform to A, B, C

The evidence is out repeatedly, that persons at danger from the latest coronavirus (just one of a series which have brought other influenza to the world ) are the aged and those with co-morbidities. By one physician interviewed on the bbc, mortality due to the latest virus is 10x more likely if base health is poor. Furthermore, that such conditions are reversible in the space of weeks.

youtube.com/watch?v=tkW2qD6gjzI&

It was the opinion of this physician that, as well as the government insisting on physical conditions and procedures for disease vectoring, it should also legislate for better national health - much of which (poor health - resulting from the consumption of ultra processed foods) relates to lobbying.

Now, given this evidence why would the UK government, and for that matter, why would so many world governments, push for A, B, C, when national health is a more basic issue ? 

from wercat:

The answer is here - our democracy, along with much of the world, is broken by the participation of politicians with vested interests. And worse. The persons behind the government who's wealth and lobbying power exceeds that of entire nations. Until we extricate government from such self serving interests, the true science of our predicament will never be seen or trusted, being swamped by corruption on a global scale. 

We have due cause for panic - but rather the imposition of A,B,C results with deeper consequences.

I have almost no trust in this government but we face very limited options and a ticking clock. We can't remove them democratically and by other means makes things worse.

Enjoy. Most can't.

jk

No.

You can infect someone else who then gives it to an old person.

What's the worst that can happen if you use this app?

Thanks, a fantastic example of prejudiced speculation becoming fact.

Another article that may be of interest:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/y3zmg7/the-uks-coronavirus-contact-traci...

Find it a bit odd that people will in one breath say the govt hasn't done enough, while also refusing to install an app on their phone for a few months.  No doubt many still have Farmville running on their FB account, Google tracking enabled in day-to-day life, Nectar cards, sharing their likes and dislikes on viral FB posts and so on.  

If things really are as bad as they seem, giving the govt specific and restricted information for a time-limited period hardly seems a gross violation and risk, especially when put in perspective to most people's complete disregard for personal privacy in the rest of their lives.

Flat battery but fundamentally doesn't work because not running in the background - the register thinks the UK & Australian versions are rubbish on technical grounds. At the register they know what they're talking about when it comes to tech.

What's the worst that can happen if you adopt the Google/Apple API and the Australian legal safeguards to get a technical solution that works and greater adoption by the public?

I presume then that you have the solution which manages the pandemic without impinging on individual freedoms? Are you going to be so kind as to share it with us? 

So far then no one has given me much of a reason for not using the app other than it might not work very well.

On the other hand using it could stop me killing someone.

I don't really care which particular app is used although I believe the NHS one does have some advantages but everyone has to use the same one, obviously.

From what I have read you need to be close for  about 15 mins for it to register as a contact. Transient proximity during walking/cycling/driving unlikely to be an issue and it should correctly pick up 15 mins walking together, cycling together, in same car or public transport.

I guess they've set 15 mins as the right balance for false positives Vs false negatives.

"Within 2m for 15 minutes" was the origin of the 2m thing.  Passing 2m from someone is highly unlikely to cause spread unless they coughed or sneezed on you as you did.

Let's put it this way - when I get a cold I can usually easily work out who it came from, I don't think I've ever had one of those from just walking past someone.

So as with Brexit we don't give a shit about Northern Ireland then? 

We could have chosen to use the same one they'll be using in Ireland which would then also work along our big porous land border with the EU (and may stand a better chance of working at all), but where would have been the fun in that for Dominic Cummings eh?

A slightly different question is, what's the worst that can happen if this app is widely adopted? Possible answer, you can't go to work/enter a supermarket/get on a train without showing a digital covid status, that also happens to log your social interactions and can identify you personally.

It seems highly likely that this isn't purely track and trace, which is a worthy means of sharing information between the public, but is a precursor to a digital covid passport, which is largely undebated. Otherwise why do you need to provide your app uuid at the test station as described? At best the test station should be giving you the means to prove your test status, rather than you giving up your app identity and within it any app anonymity.

I think you're confusing me with the mop headed f*ck whose job it actually is to serve everyone in the county. If I don't have a different solution, does that mean I shouldn't point out flaws in the proposal?

Your'e assuming that my priorities are the same as yours in ending the lockdown, and i should therefore accept whatever shite the government fling as its the best of a bad lot.  They aren't and I wont.

Interesting article in the guardian today from TB experts say an additional 1.4m people will contract and die of untreated or undiagnosed TB in the world, in the next 5 years because of this lockdown.  Thats one illness, you can imagine those figures repeated for measles, Malaria etc.  it doesn't take long for the lives sacrificed to overtake the lives theoretically saved.

My point being, for the app to be the only solution to the lockdown you priority has to be saving as many lives as possible at this very moment.  that isn't the only perspective on the topic.

This app is likely to be needed until we have an effective vaccine or treatment, with estimates for those at circa a year. That’s plenty of time for the back channel messaging by junior government to start on how useful all this data is in fighting terrorism and of course pedophiles (you’re not pro-pedophiles, are you, citizen?) with the discussion then shifting to how the best thing is probably to keep it for the long term. Fast forward 6 months from there and councils will be using it to find out whose dog crapped in the local park. 

This relies less of a prediction of the future and more on an ability to remember the past, since this is what happened with the last bit of data gathering legislation that was put in to fight terrorists, if I recall.

To repeat the same question I posed up thread; if things really are ‘as bad as they seem’ why have our government elected to go for this approach that is raising so much opposition from privacy advocates, when they have another option laid out in front of them that nobody really objects to in the form of the Google/Apple platform? Is adoption of this app important or not?

see above.....

running around like a headless chicken is technically doing more than sitting on your hands.  Doesn't mean it s the better response to a situation.

This is not actually true. The whole point of the platform that Apple and Google got together and designed is that it makes all the technical tools available for the various governments to wrap in whatever app they choose AND makes all the apps compatible in terms of the proximity detection functionality. Think of it like the same way we can all use the same websites while all using different web browsers.

Great post

Pretty sure they've said you got notified if the person is in range for 15 minutes or longer so in most of your cases you'd be unlikely to be in that proximity for that long

No.

The reason I say that is that I did a little more investigation into the problem last night, and the probability that the UK app will work in any useful way in the near future is zero point zero recurring.

Rather than go on a rant about the app (which I'm itching to do), I'd just say that I hope the government are throwing money at getting traditional contact tracing up and running, because that's what we are going to need, desperately, in the next few weeks, in order to avoid further lockdowns, with all the consequences that they entail.

ff

I believe the advantage of the NHS one is that data is collated centrally thus allowing you to do stuff you wouldn't be able to do with the Google/Apple app. Can't remember precisely what but it's bin that blog post above.

Doesn't really matter if the app is not gathering contact info because hasn't kept it the foreground with the screen on.

Yeah, they do have a few things that they claim they want to do - and no doubt they can. It's generally true that 'more is more' where data is concerned. The problem is that there's also a lot more nefarious things that can be done with 'more' data collected in a centralised location.

I would recommend reading this, https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/

One little excerpt:

"Levy also glossed over the fact that as soon as someone agrees to share their information with UK government – by claiming to feel unwell and hitting a big green button – 28 days of data from the app is given to a central server from where it can never be recovered. That data, featuring all the unique IDs you've encountered in that period and when and how far apart you were, becomes the property of NCSC – as its chief exec Matthew Gould was forced to admit to MPs on Monday. Gould also admitted that the data will not be deleted, UK citizens will not have the right to demand it is deleted, and it can or will be used for "research" in future."

How do any of those things that I've highlighted square with any of the recent progress that has been made in individual data privacy?

Id guess a the point of isolation you would then book in for a test in order to confirm or deny. (Id guess this would be resource intensive and time sensitive) But needed. 

Second it needs to be 15 minutes or more to register at a range of 2 meters or less. 
Other than work colleagues/Family i doubt you will be coming into that sort of range for that amount of time with any random people outside of public transport.  

So provided we socially distance effectively still and only associate when essential the number of daily contacts is liable to be low and fleeting which means in a sense its got it own guard against false positives.   

This article says the "NHS" app doesn't use bluetooth. Loads of other articles are saying it does. Have I misunderstood something?

You understood the article perfectly!

However the article is wrong.

The NHS app does use Bluetoot.

The NHS app does not use the Google/Apple Bluetooth technique. 

Yes I realise that my data privacy will be temporarily compromised but I am prepared to accept that in order to save lives.

What's the worst thing that could happen if I use this app?

Trouble with that is that we need to stay in lockdown until a vaccine arrives. Apart from trashing the economy are you really prepared to stay indoors until next Easter?

You don't have to stay indoors to social distance. To use the Ap I need a new phone and to change my habits (keep it with me turned on 'in public') and to trust the government and their dodgy private partners on data security. Stuff all of that.  I'm not going to be breaching social distancing so the main function of the Ap is irrelevant for me. If Singapore only got to 20% Ap coverage we don't stand a chance. I still think not using Apple/Google is an opportunity missed for the UK (although that won't work on my phone either).

The implication in that statement is that the compromise to your privacy is necessary to save lives, while an alternative mechanism that doesn't compromise your privacy (anywhere near as much) does exist and is readily available. Our government have chosen not to use it because our government considers it preferable to get all of that data in to a big database run by a private corporation. It's possible that this is solely to do a better job of looking after us all, but I think you'd be hard pushed to find any other areas where our government has gone particularly above and beyond for our benefit. I'm sure the healthcare workers currently using positive thinking for PPE will find the incongruity striking.

A choice quote from the Register article: "they expect the vast majority of UK citizens to opt in, download the app, and share their data anyway, no matter any of these concerns, out of a sense of civic duty."

This is exactly the position that you (and no doubt a huge number of others) have adopted. IF you were, entirely hypothetically, a bald-headed weasel creature in the upper circles of government who had previously been caught with their hand-in-the-till regarding abusing the general public's personal data for political ends, you have to admit this would be something that would occur to you and you might be prepared to play to your advantage.

That is the logical question to ask, but the problem is that answering it (and the similar 'If you have nothing to hide, what are you scared of') is that it's impossible without taking things to an extreme and that always sounds ridiculous. No doubt there are essays on the internet about why you should place value on your privacy that address the topic much better than I can in a forum post.

Using something that constantly keeps bluetooth alive and in the foreground, on my phone, with my battery, will mean being able to have a phone for a couple of hours total before my battery is flat.

What is the origin of this statement ? Not everyone agrees - suppose that the worldview were corrupted by selfish interests ?

This perspective from epidemologist Knut Wittkowski

youtube.com/watch?v=k0Q4naYOYDw&

Bang up to date, no comment on diet, zero tolerance for conspiracy, only the science

Published paper here:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.28.20036715v5

depends which hills though and whether there is a safe entrypoint

We know the group of people associated with Vote Leave cheated the Facebook API deliberately to harvest millions of records by using a honeypot app to get sign ups and then using the API to get friends of the people who signed up as well as the actual sign ups.   We also know they created hundreds of misleading and factually incorrect ads and extensively A/B tested them to determine which were most effective during the EU referendum.   They also cheated with respect to funding rules and shared private databases between different organisations with no concern for privacy rules.   We should expect them to lie and cheat in every way they can to access personal data for financial and political gain.

Apps can be updated and people don't pay attention to new features.  The app can start out relatively innocuous while the scrutiny is intense then do what they really want after the attention is off.

If it starts trying to access the microphone, camera or GPS chip or other data on the phone e.g. contacts, photos, texts, e-mail that would be of great concern.

So how do you make money or get political influence by controlling this data:

a. If you owned an insurance company you might be able to better evaluate risk on proposals by having a better understanding of what people actually got up to than you are entitled to.

b. If you know where people have been and who they have been meeting you can use it to blackmail or more likely embarrass anyone whose career you want to destroy.   Like setting journalists on scientists whose views inconvenience you but on an industrial scale.    The database could be used to infer who was shagging who or going to embarrassing places e.g. STD clinic.

c. If you happen to be friends with hedge fund owners you could provide some really interesting market sensitive information.  If CEO of company A is meeting regularly with CEO of company B offsite somewhere then maybe there are merger talks.   If CEO C is going to a cancer clinic maybe he is seriously ill and their shares will crash when it becomes public.

Not in the current form as such, but yes 2mtrs apart were ever possible. If this absolutely cannot be done then yeah i am saying for the meantime curb it. I cannot see a logical way a gym cinema or climbing wall can open safely given were we are right now. 

But outdoor exercise/socialising isn't that hard to do been 2 mtrs apart. Yes we will have to mitigate our behaviour in the medium term.  This way the app SHOULD only come into contact with work colleagues close family etc. Any other time your likely to know your to close to someone and wont spend 15 minute there unless its without choice. I.e a train.

But hopefully because so many have discovered home working actually works well, they wont all rush back. Meaning those that have to us a public transport network will be able to distance themselves.

The corona virus has feels like subjected me to a greater loss of liberty (provided id have had the information id have voluntarily done most of the actions gov advised) than any app and ill try to see it as the government liberating rather than snooping on me. 

After the event Gov needs to be ? about the whole response, but for were we are id say get on the app bandwagon. Most of the data a large part of the population are giving up has probably already been sacrificed  to Intsagram, google maps etal and non of those are trying to save your life. 

Not on my account, dark humour is fine. It helps if it's funny. Some of us see the world quite literally, more so in writing.

Bollocks. I (ignoring the unknown unknowns) am in very limited danger. My wife and unborn child is in unknown/disputed danger. If it get's into my parents' household there appears to be less than 50:50 chance I see them both again, those aren't good odds in my book.

I've no objection to public health spending but I might remind you we just elected the most right wing government in a generation so I'm not sure we're all totally on board with that. If it's effective.

You appear to have slipped into magical thinking. This can't be fixed by people not like you becoming like you, fit, well, virtuous within weeks. Even if the fitness of the nation could be suddenly and magically turned around that wouldn't stop what is a novel and serious respiratory illness tearing through the older, less well and otherwise plain unlucky members of our society in the mean time.

Apologies if this is all dark humour I somehow don't get.

Corrupt government (and I don't argue ours isn't rotten to the core) doesn't change reality, it shapes perception of local realities but this is real, it is a real problem. Everywhere. The solution is the same it ever was, stop it spreading.

jk

The corruption at government level has been amplified by the media to flood us with hype and panic. Yes it does change reality ! The alternate politic which Sweden took and which UK set out on was - keep it spreading, not - stop it spreading ! We need herd immunity. New 'novel' viruses happen with relative frequency - as winter flu's, and maybe this one is a bit worse - microbially speaking. What is worse, much much worse, are the reactions which have filtered down from WHO through our governments and media excitement - to put us in lockdown.

*I* am guilty of magical thinking ?! No it wasn't me who made those assertions in the bbc video. But I do have an unusual history of 'alternative' health practice - which enables me to see and experience cause and effect in right living, and wrong living too.

But let's stick to the science, back to the BMJ article which discusses Non Communicable Diseases - those underlying cv19 vulnerability - and how they originate in every stage of the food supply chain, from farming practice, to processing, packaging, presntation, publicity and lobbying, all of which is known and categorised :

https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l296

Quotes:

Globally, nearly one in three people has at least one form of malnutrition ... which ... includes nutritional disorders caused by deficient intake of energy or nutrients, ... it also includes excessive and imbalanced intake, leading to overweight, obesity, and diet related NCDs.

Unhealthy diets, malnutrition, and NCDs are closely linked. They are the logical consequences of, among other factors, today’s food systems, which have changed dramatically in the past 50 years. 

Global demand for and supply of meat, dairy products, sugar sweetened drinks, and processed and ultra-processed foods has increased dramatically.

Today’s food systems are broken and do not deliver nutritious, safe, affordable, and sustainable diets; worse, they undermine nutrition in several ways

 Billions of dollars are spent annually marketing foods high in calories, fats, sugars, and salt, and intake has increased globally, including in low income countries. Meanwhile, more than a quarter (27.5%) of the world’s population are now insufficiently physically active.9 The prevalence of adult obesity has nearly tripled since 1975 and, by 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults were overweight or obese,10 while there has been a ten fold increase in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents over the same period.

The true costs of modern food systems, whose heavy environmental impact threatens the health of the planet and future generations

Comment:

There's plenty of evidence there - our current pandemic would have a vastly slimmer profile if governments acted upon known inputs for basic national health.

Government ignoring this IS corruption.

You seem to be under the impression that social distancing will be sufficient to curb the spread of the virus. I think an epidemiologist would be able to give you a myriad of other mechanisms.

The thing about contact tracing followed by isolation is that it works independent of transmission mechanism. 

It's magical thinking to believe 70 years of industrial food industry and the harm it has done can be reversed in a matter of weeks in the midst of this. Also that simply making people healthier makes them safe from the virus. No amount of kale and Mr motivator will make my poorly aging parents safe from covid. It's that idea, that if we were all magically fit and well we could have skipped lockdown that is magical nonsense, we're not, we're not going to be any time soon and it'll still kill plenty of us even if we are. 

I'm well aware of the value of fresh food, I grow my own but I also like a good microwave curry.

Jk

A couple of today's TC articles. Well worth a read:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/uks-nhs-covid-19-app-lacks-robust-legal-s...

https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/uk-eyeing-switch-to-apple-google-api-for-...

You obviously did not read the NCSC blog explaining the model of working of the App, and the fact that the App will be made open source.

How do we know that the app we download from the Apple web store is identical to what we would get if we compiled to open source code?

How do we know that, if it is the exact open source code in the first version of the app it will continue to be for all future updates?

The only claim to fame of the people the UK government has employed to do this is cheating the Facebook API to obtain confidential personal data.   It's like putting Jimmy Saville in charge of the Childline app.

Like any open source, it relies on somebody compiling the code and calculating the hash for that release. 

Agree.

That was published at about the time of my post. Dr Levy's paper is here:

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/NHS-app-security-paper%20V0.1.pdf

It has a lot that you would expect and hope for in such a discussion document - so good. No code yet though, and only a broad brush design. I think it's important not to have unreasonable expectations, and there are lots of those flying around.

Now the politicians are getting involved, as the papers are saying they are looking into going for the Apple / Google system instead, for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/07/uk-may-ditch-nhs-contact...

This won't be helping morale in the development team, especially as the inevitable problems emerged in the IoW feasibility test. Interesting times.

Agreed, in the near term there will be mortalities; this is no casual dismissal - I have a sister in N Wales, 62yrs old and diabetic, so she is hi-risk in known cv19 targets.  But lets keep the BIG picture in view, namely, basic health care versus drug/vaccine after-care. IF the latter is prioritised it puts motivations into politics to mis-handle our affairs.

The following evidence is a discussion of dealing with malaria, lifted from:

https://static.mediapart.fr/files/2017/12/31/20130613-newsjunkiepost-b-bill...

Quite literally, hundreds of studies, papers and analyses have determined that the best way to reduce transmission and mortality from infectious diseases such as Malaria and Polio is to educate a population and raise its standard of living. Eritrea, for example, managed to reduce its Malaria infection rates by 80 percent by organizing public-education campaigns on nutrition and disease prevention

...

Bill Gates is a pretty smart guy. So why did he embark on a massive vaccination campaign when the same funds could have been invested in genuinely sustainable communitydevelopment and public-health programs? Because that does not make money. The B&MGF invested one billion dollars to develop a Malaria vaccine produced by GSK, in which (you guessed it) Bill Gates holds large numbers of shares and on which he exerts considerable influence

A very strange report you linked to there. It sounds like it has more than a little grudge to bear in selectively filtering and mixing fact and opinion.

The main accusation, as far as I could tell, is that rich donors to the foundation benefit because the donated funds are then used to increase the value of the donors' existing shares in big pharma companies, thereby dismissing their donations as self-interested rather than altruistic. But surely if it were only self-interest, the donors would be far better off investing directly in the companies directly, thereby hugely increasing their return from any resulting share price increase as they also would own far more shares?

I don't doubt that being seen to be giving to charitable causes can be a way for some to feel better about their otherwise irresponsible investments, but I fail to see that this particular foundation is guilty of much other than exploiting that human weakness to help fund useful research.

I understand the NHS is now building a second app in parallel based on the Apple/Google architecture. Apologies if this has been confirmed upthread.

Funny, we had no polio education and yet polio has been eradicated in UK. Something to do with the polio vaccine I expect.

Education is important though for Bill and Melinda.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Policy/Global-Education-P...

Yes, they are often commended, and not so often criticised

quotes:

If you only ever read media coverage of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, you would assume everybody loves it.

Some experts worry that the Gateses’ health philanthropy has become too big to scrutinize.

Precisely because the private organization is so large and influential, some researchers say, critical analysis is so much more important.

All told, the foundation now spends more on global health every year than the World Health Organization — not to mention more than most countries on the planet.

Some researchers have argued that it wields a disproportionate influence on global health — with little accountability.

One 2008 article by two Oxford researchers, published in The Lancet, argued that the Gates Foundation was "misfinancing global health" — paying most of its grants out to rich countries and prioritizing infectious diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and malaria) over major chronic killers such as obesity, cancer, and diabetes.

"There’s immense concern surrounding the Gates Foundation’s position on intellectual property rights, and whether this major global health player is cognizant enough to ensure property rights are fair for citizens in wealthy and poor nations."

Another explanation for the silence ( absence of criticism ), Harman argues, is that "everyone is scared of challenging Gates and the foundation's role because they don't want to lose their funding."  AND  "I noticed that often people wouldn't speak on the record because they were being funded by the foundation or because they had done some kind of work for Gates in the past. When they did speak, their views were usually glowing".

"Foundations don’t have to prove that they’re making good use of billions of dollars of tax-subsidized funds, and nonprofits don’t have to identify their donors, as we’ve learned from the Clinton Foundation saga." ( a problem with all foundations )

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8760199/gates-foundation-criticism

Looking at the link I see lots of text you have missed out. I see your technique is to "quotes" all the negatives to give a completely different slant with no nuance. Am I dishonest to use different quotes?

quotes:

To be sure, plenty of experts think the Gates Foundation does important work in fighting neglected diseases and boosting vaccinate rates in children. The foundation has taken private funding for global health to an unprecedented level, giving away more than $30 billion with an emphasis on data-driven decision-making. Bill and Melinda have also been applauded for encouraging others in their position to do the same.

The Gates Foundation spends more on global health every year than most countries

There's no doubt the Gates Foundation has had a profound impact on global health. The sheer scale of its charitable giving is astonishing. It's the largest philanthropic foundation in the world, with an endowment worth $42.9 billion — roughly double the GDP of Uganda. To date, the foundation has paid out $33.5 billion in large grants to do everything from design better condoms to develop off-the-grid water sanitation technologies.

The foundation's funding was instrumental in setting up the GAVI Alliance, which has played a major role in boosting immunization rates around the world. The foundation helped launch the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation in 2007, now the preeminent source of global health statistics and an important tool for evaluating the impact of programs like vaccine rollouts and cancer screening. The Gateses have distributed billions to fight crippling infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and to improve maternal health and childhood mortality.

All told, the foundation now spends more on global health every year than the World Health Organization — not to mention more than most countries on the planet. The foundation is also the second-biggest funder of the WHO, after the United States, and a major contributor to other UN agencies and key global health players, like the Global Fund (which finances treatment and prevention for infectious diseases like HIV/AIDs, TB, and malaria) and the World Bank.

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8760199/gates-foundation-criticism

So, because there is no evidence that the foundation is corrupt or evil ... That's evidence that it must be corrupt and evil? According to a single, non-attributed source from 12 years ago?

And incidentally, if your research doesn't extend to more than visiting the Foundation's home page, you'll find that the explicit objectives are about reducing birthrates and empowering women and prioritising sustainable communities in the developing world. Your cited 'article' is just made up, a genuine false facts artefact.

You've been had mate.

so for example ... Trump is a great man, a just and fair president, a champion of democracy ... just go and ask the man himself ! 

Sorry, your lack of critical faculties is beginning to show.

The problem with looking for a conspiracy is you’re always going to find one...

He's an anti-vaxxer!

Acknowledged - there's another side to the argument.

But I do confess, yes I have a set agenda. As a climber I'd like to see the scene open up so we can all get back on the rock. Sadly I see on this forum that I am not talking with like-minded people who seem to cherish the spirit of fear which is detaining us in our homes; it seems some folk would prefer to just wrap up in cotton wool and keep their slippers warm by the fireside  

Well at least someone in government is learning to take out insurance against exceptionalism backfiring again. Let's hope this job didn't go to another set of well connected brexit crooks.

jk

I'm in favour of most methods that return the loss of liberty that's been imposed by covid. It has open malign intent on your health. This app MAY impact on a varying degree of your privacy. To me it seems an acceptable trade off provided its effectively policed. 

Undoubtedly social distancing works. And I have enough grey matter to understand the greatest vector this virus needs is people mixing. If you limit your interactions with people and avoid locations were large groups meet it stands to reason it's enough.

I realise this is dependent on lots of factors it is harder or easier depending were you live income etc. 

When it's not and you drop the ball hopefully the app is an additional layer to help. 

*Lee 

Any talk of anti vaccination is in my personal experience trash. It's a closed subject that doesn't need discussion in general terms. (Potentially individual vaccines)

Speaking as someone whose parents were scared out of vaccination by the false autism scandal in the 80s 90s. I know what happens when your not vaccinated. You catch the flipping thing you should've been vaccinated against. There overwhelmingly  positive. End of. 

A set agenda is fine, we all have them. That crag access takes you to the Gates Foundation is bizarre though.

Gates has been funding the causes they've spoken about. The priorities include biggest bang per buck so they save lives in the third world where their money makes a difference. It's all very public. They appear to do what they say.

No need for a Gates conspiracy when there is a simpler explanation of a new infectious disease emerging as they have throughout history. No reason to think that a miracle has occured to stop that.

No argument, no discussion ?! - a fine statement of bias

In fact I have never argued directly against vaccines. What I am disputing 100% is that 'life cannot return to normal until 7bn ppl on the planet are vaccinated'.

I further dispute that, due to the imbalance in Gates steering, nil  support is given to correction of basic national health standards. See my discussion above - '10x greater mortality, only weeks to turn around chronic inlflammation. NOT my words - check the bbc video for the connection with ultra-processed foods which flourish on supermarket shelves due to gov's neglect to restrain lobbying and publicity.

Why the flip should Gates fix our health? Are we not rich enough for that to be our responsibility?

We spend more than his entire wealth on the NHS in just one year and that's just the UK. Gates is too poor to make a difference across the developed world.

Have you not thought about the numbers - Gates wealth Vs health spending?

Either, you haven't been reading the posts and links I've made, or you don't believe their content. That's ok, so long as we know where we are

There isn't a coherent argument (general) against them. It's up there with a debate on flat earth. So yes my statement  stands 

I read your posts but few links as I am aware of the existence of processed food and lobbyists.

Why should Gates spend his money in rich countries that consume processed food where he is too poor to make a difference?

Does it not bother you that you could have accessed all the same upsides without the downsides, except somebody decided they’d like a nice big database of data about you to exploit later?

Another way to look at it is that Coronavirus is only going to be ‘short’ term relative to the length of time that normalising massive, routine surveillance of the population would be a problem. Have you ever seen a government voluntarily give up snooping powers once they exist? How many 9/11 related measures ever got reversed?

BTW I am arguing in favour of the decentralised app, not no app at all. I am pleased to see that the noises from government seem to be swinging that way. 

There's zero evidence to suggest any of the data is going to be used for anything other than combating covid. And it grates me that millions of us willingly hand over vast quantities of it every time we shop use maps use Facebook Instagram etc and very few of those things have a collective positive like the app does (maybe) If there is a safer way then I'm all for it obviously BUT the evidence suggests a centralised system is better at providing useful information. Maybe a specific addtion to gdpr laws or other legal check would enforce its use and further deletion in future. I'd say this is a must. 

The thing to focus on for me is virus cares nothing for these rules checks and balances we live by. It gives no f*cks at all about your or my data etc. It fights dirty. And maybe for a short time in order to beat it we have to as well. As mentioned earlier the loss of liberty I'm experiencing now hasn't been placed on me by government etc as my actions provided i had the information would have been to do as advised. I believe this is the reason for the high compliance. 

The upside to the app for me is potential liberty. 

The downside is a potential  liberty trade off. For the current climate I'm on board. 

I'm not entirely sure that case is proven. There are good reasons for thinking the government's chosen approach might be technologically flawed.

Just to be clear I'm in favour of whatever system is the most effective in tackling the out break. Eithier centralised or de centralised is fine provided it gives a big enough tool kit to return our Liberty 

Provided there is transparency legislation etc I'm happy to trade data for health safety in the short term. I see it as a risk reward is there a greater threat to me from covid or use of my data? Currently given I likely hand over vast quantities of data willingly for no good reason I see covid as the bigger threat. This might be ignorance , to much faith in gov, plain stupidity or hubris on my part.

But it feels that's the direction my personal risk assessment sends me.  

If a european reference is useful in the tracking game, here's whats happening in france

https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/29/coronavirus-french-mps-approve-covid-19...

a previous euronews article finishes with the hair-bristling conclusion:

"... if, by any chance, mass surveillance develops in Europe, it will not have been for the coronavirus. The coronavirus will have been an excuse for this to happen".

https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/31/could-the-coronavirus-pandemic-lead-to-...