Will You be using the NHS app?

[mercalia]

Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent @BBC has been given an inside look at the app


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52551273

No, he's only been given early access to it. He has not been allowed to look inside, as far as I can tell from that report.

Also, most of the report and description of how the app works would be true for the better apps too. He completely ignored all the reasons that the NHS one has been criticised. Maybe that was a condition of getting a preview? Malcolm Tucker couldn't have gotten friendlier coverage.

you are reading too much into my words

[Cunobelin]

I have already bought my first smartphone in anticipation of this, so yes, I will be using it. And anyone wishing to join in the general effort to control the virus will do so. This is the wrong time to develop US-style conspiracy theory anti-government paranoia about these things. Get a bloody grip!

Emotional blackmail against vigilant citizens is completely inappropriate. Get a bloody grip yourself!

The government has no good reason to exploit this pandemic and launch a centralised tracker. In doing so, it's putting intelligence gathering ahead of public health. It's sick, sick, sick! I hope it fails testing so comprehensively that they switch to the Swiss-Austrian app on order to get something useful quickly.

But they do.....

It is called Propaganda.

We have tracked and tracee35 million people today will be announced as a massive Government success

Just like the Tests, PPE, and all the other things the Government has lied about

[Cunobelin]

My data would be terribly flawed, and they would always be calling me.

I need to have my phone with me as I am either on-call, liasing with others or managing and contacting staff who are off, in isolation etc.

Therefore I would be triggering the alarms every time I dealt with a patient.

[pwa]

My data would be terribly flawed, and they would always be calling me.

I need to have my phone with me as I am either on-call, liasing with others or managing and contacting staff who are off, in isolation etc.

Therefore I would be triggering the alarms every time I dealt with a patient.

Are you saying , though, that these would be false contacts, people who have fallen ill with the virus but not been in close enough contact with you to pass it on to you?

If it is relevant to you, I believe health professionals are to be told to switch it off when donning PPE.

[merseymouth]

Hi all, So we may get pestered by cold callers? The scam generation of us oldies can't abide being called out of the blue to provide data for some unknown Joe/Joanna who we don't know from Adam!
Though of course the call centre involved will have been outsourced to the other side of globe, or even worse "Newcastle", so if I do manage to hear them it will be unintelligible to me! Hway the lads.
Life is tough enough with such calls over my existing medical issues.
So any cold call will get the dropped handset treatment, works for me. MM

[Oldjohnw]

Hi all, So we may get pestered by cold callers? The scam generation of us oldies can't abide being called out of the blue to provide data for some unknown Joe/Joanna who we don't know from Adam!
Though of course the call centre involved will have been outsourced to the other side of globe, or even worse "Newcastle", so if I do manage to hear them it will be unintelligible to me! Hway the lads.
Life is tough enough with such calls over my existing medical issues.
So any cold call will get the dropped handset treatment, works for me. MM

Careful what you say about people from Newcastle!

[mercalia]

I have already bought my first smartphone in anticipation of this, so yes, I will be using it. And anyone wishing to join in the general effort to control the virus will do so. This is the wrong time to develop US-style conspiracy theory anti-government paranoia about these things. Get a bloody grip!

What did you get?

One of the cheapest, since I don't really want it apart from for this purpose. Moto Play. To me it is just a phone (as in for texts and calls, with the benefit of Google Maps). It seems okay.

I got my first smartphone a year ago for a particular purpose. Now since you have it, if you listen to eg BBC radio you might like to know that many of their broadcasts are available as podcasts, you dont need to register and use iplayer, so worth while getting a podcast "reader" or listener.

Today I just heard on radio 4 by accident the BBC "More or less" on live radio ( available as a podcast). What caught my attention was assesssing the latest opinion that fat/obese people are more likely to get covid-19 ( 10x). The evidence wass assessed and debunked - you would have to be eg 20+ stone and just 5'10" I think it said for there to be an issue & nothing to do with covid-19 per se eg very fat people have trouble breathing, it doesnt take much to fall off the cliff, and more likely to be hospitalised if they have a lung issue and put on a ventilator.

A guy in one of the flats where I live is like that , he is just a round ball on legs and his breathing is laboured at best of times & very shallow - the fat he has acts like a strait jacket.

[mercalia]

according to the Spectator the app may not work

The reason why is technical, but important. For the app to be useful, it needs to be running on our phones all the time – so that it continues to transmit and receive the Bluetooth signals that determine who we have been in contact with. The problem is that both Apple’s iOS operating system, which runs on iPhones, and Google’s Android operating system, which runs on almost every other smartphone, are not designed to work like this.

Unlike a laptop, where if you open up a programme it will stay running until you close it, mobile operating systems have been designed to preserve memory and save battery. If there’s an app your phone thinks you’ve stopped using, after a little while it will be quietly closed.

This means that – especially on iPhones where the app rules are most strict – if you open the Covid app and then have a look at Facebook or watch a video, you might find it silently stops working in the background. For most apps this isn’t a problem – if your photos app has to restart afresh when you open it, you won’t even notice as it will automatically load up the last image you were looking at. But if the app is supposed to be listening and transmitting in the background, there will be a gap in the data as it won’t have been running.

There are a handful of loopholes to these rules – but both iPhone and Android operating systems are strict about how they apply. For example, voice-over-IP apps like Skype can continue to receive calls in the background, and some apps that use GPS will automatically re-trigger the app if your phone detects you have moved location. But these loopholes appear to be unavailable to NHSX, the arm of the NHS that is developing the app. Developers have already committed to not using location data, for example. Assuming the app is being built to comply with the normal app store rules, there isn’t really a way around it.


https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-nhs-contact-tracing-app-could-be-dead-on-arrival?

well in the case of Windows phone you can decide which app you want to run in the background ( even in battery saving mode) , I am surprised you cant do the same with eg Android.

The article explains why the govt was maybe forced to use a centralised system rather than Google/Apple soln viz

The blame may lie with the NHS’s lack of testing capacity. In a decentralised system, dodgy self-declarations are harder to police and could pollute the system with bad or unreliable data.

[AlaninWales]

Honestly people, this app is simply there to help trace contacts of people who have been infected, to reduce the effect of the pandemic! Honestly ... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/04/uk_covid_app_human_rights_parliament/?fbclid=IwAR1bHhPWG2qsLJWYscgertry8fnyyh7LtH7TNgCC73HaNUNuuuFNoPeyq-w

Britons will not be able to ask NHS admins to delete their COVID-19 contact-tracking data from government servers, digital arm NHSX's chief exec Matthew Gould admitted to MPs this afternoon.

Gould also told Parliament's Human Rights Committee that data harvested from Britons through NHSX's COVID-19 contact tracing app would be "pseudonymised" - and appeared to leave the door open for that data to be sold on for "research".

"pseudonymised" - not anonymised.

De-anonymising such data was successfully demonstrated in 2015,

ICO is not particularly happy, maybe because they were ignored:

Addressing the same committee, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham repeated to MPs that her office "was not signing off on an app." Despite being closely questioned on her reverse-ferret from earlier declarations that "the starting point for contact tracing should be decentralised systems", she said this afternoon that she wanted the ICO to be a "critical friend" to NHSX.

Denham added that if enough people complained about the app, NHSX had given the Information Commissioner's Office its permission to "perform a voluntary audit on the app and systems – when appropriate to do so." She shrugged: "The functionality of the app is up to government to decide… it's not for me to decide, it's for me to advise on how to mitigate some of these potential risks."

But GCHQ is:

The National Cyber Security Centre was also wheeled out to defend NHSX, with top techie Ian Levy telling the world in a blog post late this afternoon that there's nothing to worry about because smart folk have put the hours in to ensure it's reasonably secure.

So honestly, given this ringing endorsement by our security services and the fact that this has been developed by people linked to Cambridge Analytica (NHSX is NOT the IT arm of the NHS: Whatever gave you that impression? Entirely coincidental I am sure ), it is evident that there can be no concern for those who have nothing to hide.

[Vitara]

My data would be terribly flawed, and they would always be calling me.

I need to have my phone with me as I am either on-call, liasing with others or managing and contacting staff who are off, in isolation etc.

Therefore I would be triggering the alarms every time I dealt with a patient.

Possibly better to check the facts first. That was my thought, it will be triggering everytime I see a CV19 +ve patient. The App includes instructions for Healthcare Workers to turn off Bluetooth when wearing PPE to prevent this from happening.

[Cunobelin]

My data would be terribly flawed, and they would always be calling me.

I need to have my phone with me as I am either on-call, liasing with others or managing and contacting staff who are off, in isolation etc.

Therefore I would be triggering the alarms every time I dealt with a patient.

Possibly better to check the facts first. That was my thought, it will be triggering everytime I see a CV19 +ve patient. The App includes instructions for Healthcare Workers to turn off Bluetooth when wearing PPE to prevent this from happening.

Unfortunately Bluetooth is what connects it to many patient devices...... and if installing it would go on the NHS phone, not my own

[mercalia]

well so far 50:50 dont look good for the success of the app if this reflects the country at large - I understand they need a 80% take up of mobile users?

[pwa]

well so far 50:50 dont look good for the success of the app if this reflects the country at large - I understand they need a 80% take up of mobile users?

Which looks improbable if the folk on this thread are anything to go by.

[Vitara]

well so far 50:50 dont look good for the success of the app if this reflects the country at large - I understand they need a 80% take up of mobile users?

It may be a bit presumptive to think the opinions of 34 posters on a Cycling forum are representative of the wider population on this issue. Let's wait and see.

[Vitara]

My data would be terribly flawed, and they would always be calling me.

I need to have my phone with me as I am either on-call, liasing with others or managing and contacting staff who are off, in isolation etc.

Therefore I would be triggering the alarms every time I dealt with a patient.

Possibly better to check the facts first. That was my thought, it will be triggering everytime I see a CV19 +ve patient. The App includes instructions for Healthcare Workers to turn off Bluetooth when wearing PPE to prevent this from happening.

Unfortunately Bluetooth is what connects it to many patient devices...... and if installing it would go on the NHS phone, not my own

It sounds like you've already decided not to install the app. Your choice, that's fine.
The logic of installing it on your NHS work phone makes no sense though, to function it would need to be on your personal phone tracking your contacts when away from the Healthcare environment.