Questions We Can Answer

May 31, 2020 Longrider Civil Liberties, General News, General Rants, Health and Fitness, misanthropy, Science and Technology 10

Will you be downloading the track and trace app?

The NHS Covid-19 alert app will be available nationwide in June. It’s voluntary, so those of us with smartphones must decide: should we download the app?

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, thinks we should, claiming that we would be “doing our duty and helping to save lives”.

Short answer. Two letters, one syllable.

If only it were that simple. Even if 80% of smartphone users (60% of the UK population) download the app, which is the adoption rate epidemiologists say is needed to make it work, the app won’t save lives.

Can’t say that I’m surprised.

Still, it can’t do any harm to download the app, right? Actually, no. Unless the government compels employers to pay people to quarantine for 14 days every time they receive an alert, people may feel pressured to ignore the alerts and keep working, even if that risks their health and that of their contacts. Also, not every worker is entitled to sick pay. Those are policy problems, not an app problem, but if we don’t solve them, the app won’t work and the virus will continue to spread.

This is a fair point and one that government probably hasn’t given due consideration. But it gets worse.

The app also puts our data and privacy at greater risk of an accidental breach or a cyberattack because it is based on a centralised model, which stores our data on a central server. A decentralised model, which keeps our data on our devices, minimises this risk. Most other countries have opted for a decentralised model for their app. There’s still time for the UK to change course.

It seems that they are still going for this centralised honeypot approach that Big Blunkett wanted for his identity database a decade and a half ago. Actually my response isn’t a simple “no” it’s more a case of telling them to take the sex and travel option.

10 Comments

  2. Download an app that will be rubbish because done in a hurry by the government. Will mine my data which if they don’t sell a hacker will. Furtle around my online banking, spy on my internet use to log any seditious comments. Contact my smartphone contacts to demand why they have not downloaded their app and use up my battery. Want to know where I’ve been when it’s switched off which is over half my day. What’s not to like ?

  3. I can’t see how it can possibly work anyway. The people that I have been in contact with have all been in contact with other people who have also been in contact with other people. The number of potentially infected people fans out exponentially pretty much to infinity. The bug incubates for a couple of weeks before anyone knows that you have it, how many people have you met in that time and how many people have they met? Also, anyone who trusts the government enough to voluntarily download spyware onto their phone has to be an idiot.

  5. But, but if you’re ordered to self quarantine Kindergarten Gruppenführer Hancock says you can apply for £97pw SSP

    But 2 – can they test? Last time it was abandoned because
    Sunday Telegraph front page main story

    UK abandoned testing because system ‘could only cope with five coronavirus cases a week’
    Britain’s disastrous decision to abandon testing for coronavirus occurred because health systems could only cope with five cases a week, official documents show.

    Newly-released papers from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies shows routine testing and tracing of contacts was stopped because Public Health England’s systems were struggling to deal with a handful of cases.

    At a meeting on Feb 18, advisors said PHE could only cope with testing and tracing contacts of five Covid-19 cases a week, with modelling suggesting it might only be possible to increase this to 50 cases.

    Advisors then agreed it was “sensible” to shift to stopping routine testing – despite acknowledging that such a decision would “generate a public reaction”.

    Whut? £4-5 Billion per year PHE could only cope with five Covid-19 cases a week – way beyond appalling

    Pathetically weak Hancock wouldn’t order PHE to use private sector or even Unis

    No surprise, ignored by BBC Marr ‘papers review’ – PHE does no wrong

    Privacy?
    Welcome to North Korea, UK Region

    Personal information collected by NHS Test and Trace to be kept for 20 years
    And there is ‘no absolute right’ for people to delete their personal data after the pandemic has passed
    https://www.computing.co.uk/news/4015765/personal-information-collected-nhs-test-trace-kept

    `The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power – pure power.´

  7. So let me get this right….I get a phone call from an unknown person claiming that I have been exposed to an unknown person and I must stay at home and neither shop for food nor work for money.
    No.
    Even if the caller claims to be a Nigerian General.

    The opportunity for abuse is horrendous: some scrote with a grievance: just list all the people they want to disrupt and let the plods inflict the trouble.

    No.

    Claim I’ve been infected? Prove it. And pay my costs if you are wrong.
    A few lawsuits might knock some sense into these people.

  8. Just a point of information. IF the government achieves 24 hour testing results, then it may be that individuals would only be impacted for say, 48 hours (unless they are infected, in which case they should be isolating),

    Also, please note that this ‘pandemic’ is pretty mild. I believe we should expect to experience a much more severe pandemic ‘in the future’. Puting in place processes, procedures and tools now will allow us to test them prior to us REALLY needing them.

    Personally, I will download and use the app – but delete it when the numbers are trivial.

    • Deleting the app achieves nothing. Gov’t will store all data harvested for 20 years under your name. Submit false data and £1,000 fine and/or jail

Comments are closed.