NHS COVID-19 launch: Risk-scoring algorithm criticised, the downloads, plus public told to 'upgrade their phones' Better late than never. Earlier today, the UK government released its long-awaited open-source contact-tracing app to the general populace, called NHS COVID-19. Intended for users in England and Wales*, version two-point-oh addresses the problems that scuppered the original version, and uses a privacy-centric decentralised …
selfish
You've missed the point by a long way. The purpose of track and trace is to prevent spreading the virus unknowingly, but it only works with comprehensive testing. If you are notified, you have to be able to get a test and either rule yourself in or out. The majority of track and trace notifications on the app will be false positives.
With the governments failure to get testing working properly and in the necessary volumes, there is no testing with track and trace. With no testing of track and trace alertees, the number of people under lockdown will be immense, but not compared to the number of people unknowingly still spreading the virus.
We'd be better off with a stricter, shorter nationwide lock down to let the currently infectious recover whilst minimising community spread. Fewer people-weeks would be under lock down (and fewer people will be infected) if we lock down now for a short sharp period, than will be if we interminably lock down healthy people for 2 weeks for the next 6 months.
We'd be better off with a stricter, shorter nationwide lock down
That's been the theory for months. The UK has had an extended lockdown and it hasn't led to the desired result.
Infection rates are a misleading indicator of risk. Hospitalisation, ICU and death rates are far more important. The more the mortality rate starts to look like that of the flu – yes, I know in the UK it's more than this – the lest justified repressive measures are and at some point the economy will simply no longer be able to pay for them.
The UK has had an extended lockdown and it hasn't led to the desired result.
Look at any of the graphs and one can see it was heading in the right direction. Lockdown was working.
That trend reversed as Johnson prematurely relaxed lockdown and infection spread has soared since taking more significant steps to re-open the economy, opening schools, the hospitality sector, particularly pubs and clubs, trying to coerce people back into offices workplaces.
It's been a game of two halves. Johnson was late on the field and fucked up badly. He's fucked up even worse in the second half.
Data available here:
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/covid-19-testing
Easy enough to open in Excel and make a pivot chart to highlight a few things:
a) correct, we're currently testing more than Germany and have been for about 20 weeks (looking at the "testing rate" figures - not sure if they're normalised to population as the measurement is not described - but our populations are nominally similar, at least - Ger = 83m vs UK=67m)
b) Context is key. 20 weeks ago, when we started testing more, Germany's "new case" rate had just plunged, and for the previous 4 weeks had been doing at least double what we were doing. The UK "new case" rate was still at its peak
c) Germany, despite having a low case rate, has continued to do lots of testing, and have been doing efficient track & trace for months, now, having had the app deployed by June. Our track and trace system (thanks Serco/Dido) has gloriously failed miserably, and the new system has only just been deployed to a population full of mistrust - I imagine the take up will be a lot lower because of it
So yes, it's a not a "failure", it's a complete cluster-fuck because nothing was put together at an appropriate time. It's all too late. I really had a "don't know whether to laugh or cry" with our clown-in-chief's recent "a stich in time saves nine" quote hitting the Torygraph headlines.
I've been using the German app for several months now and no false positives so far, just green every day... But better a false positive than a false negative.
Selfish has been redefined in Germany, after an American woman, resident in Germany, came back from holiday and was ill, was tested and, while she was waiting for the results went out on a pub crawl and infected over 50 other people!
Some German friends of mine who have family there are frankly deeply worried at the way the UK is handling this.
The Government has been disorganised from the start and this have become progressively worse.
Nobody, including the Government appears to have any idea what their strategy is.
COVID has become a political point-scoring game with a handful of people who are completely out of their depth calling the shots (BJ, DC).
Even the scientific experts appear unable to agree on much adding further confusion.
Far too many of the UK population appear to be incapable of following in the most basic instructions and are selfish beyond belief.
Just a summary from their rants although I struggle to disagree with any of these points.
Yup that pretty much sums it up here. The number of moronic and/or selfish people who can't or won't follow basic instruction is simply astonishing. Even those groups known to be higher risk (overweight, BAME etc.) mostly don't seem to take basic precautions like masks and keeping your fucking distance.
Anecdotal of course. Some areas will be better than others, some will be worse. In my city the trend seems toward the worse end of the scale.
> Some areas will be better than others, some will be worse.
Has anyone got anything beyond region-insulting explanations as to why it is so much worse in the north than it is in the south. Especially given the north is under stricter restrictions than the south?
@Tom 38 - But that isn't the point of it. It isn't a "get a test because you've been near someone" app. It is a "you've been near someone so you should isolate" app.
People should only be getting a test if they have symptoms. The government have been saying that repeatedly.
Yes, this concept will lead to more people isolating, but in the greater scheme of things it is the right way forward. Isolate for 2 weeks, if no symptoms, you're good to go.
So, yes, you're still being selfish.
Stuff what bozo and the rest of his circus have to say.
You should test people, to determine if they are infectious.
The rationing of tests, while the plentiful supply of the the private testing, undermines that message.
But doff cap tug forlock.
Stay at home, wear a mask, wash your hands. don't bother with the app.
Only testing if you have symptoms usually means 3-7 days of asymptomatic spreading the virus before even realising there's a problem.
It's the sort of attitude to take if there are significant testing problems to be covered up, or if one actively wants the virus to spread more.
Weekly testing of everyone is the way out of this. Test at home, and if it shows positive (or if your symptoms are severe even if the test shows negative) go for an official lab test and isolate until the result is known. But the technology for home tests doesn't exist.
Weekly testing of everyone is the way out of this. Test at home, and if it shows positive (or if your symptoms are severe even if the test shows negative) go for an official lab test and isolate until the result is known. But the technology for home tests doesn't exist.
Yup. They're working on it. Not sure weekly testing is the best idea, but targetted testing probably is. So pick an area, test everyone, analyse the results and try and extrapolate into national figures. I saw something where a city is trying this, ie sending people to homes to administer tests. Which AFAIK really needs a blood draw & that analysed fairly promptly. Which I guess will be the situation for some time, and I'm not sure a home test system like my glucose or INR* monitoring (drip on a strip) would work for virus testing. Home blood drawing could be possible, ie I've had to fill many vacutainers, and although possibly fiddly to do solo, plausible. Junkies can find a vein, so how hard can it be? **
*INR test is done at the GPs, so drip on a strip and a machine that goes bing.. Which is a bit larger & a lot more expensive than my home glucometers.
** OK, not hard, but rather risky..
Bollocks re only those with symptoms.
A lot of people are "asymptomatic" (often without the "classic" symptoms, there are many other symptoms beyond the well known cough, loss of smell / taste etc. - symptoms an individual has can vary but many e.g. fatigue, headache, nausea can only be identified as COVID by having a test- and to make things more complex getting near cold & flu season in UK, so again, only way to know what cough / sore throat bug is to have a test.
.. and "asymptomatic" people can often carry a significant viral load & help spread the disease - arguably more likely to spread it as will still be out and about instead of quarantining themselves.
Full disclosure, my first degree was biology / medical related & I know a tediously large amount about viral infections and issues with diseases where there can be a wide range of symptoms and diagnosis is difficult without testing.
selfish: adjective
What has that got to do with anything?
Install this app, and when you get a notification that you've been in proximity to someone else you have to isolate for 14 days. Even if you know you haven't left the house in over a week, the app says you did. Choose to ignore it? The Dept of Health says you can be fined £1,000 or more but Hancock says it's advisory, so who do you believe, and can you afford to argue? At least manual contact tracing can apply common sense to decide between low risk or close (high risk) contacts
Well, if the app works the way it claims to, then if you get a notification from it only you and your phone know. So, reset the app (there's an option) and the underlying framework (also) and it's gone, for ever.
Of course this assumes they aren't lying. It's the government so probably they are, but the app also got into the app store as allowed to use the framework, so may be it was checked,
selfish: adjectivecaring only about what you want or need without any thought for the needs or wishes of other people
Forty years of Thatcherism has promoted selfishness. Greed is good, right.
If someone has Covid, why should they limit their behaviour to avoid passing it on? It doesn't help them.
That would be the same as not taking this opportunity to slash your workers pay and conditions, or not charging the highest possible prices that you can. If someone wouldn't stand for it in their business life, why should they stand for it in their personal life? How could they even change a lifetime's conditioning, even if they wanted to?
Hancock was at pains to emphasise this morning that following an app notification quarantine is voluntary (in contrast to a call from Track and Trace). So given that those not following the rules are more likely to become infected, and then more likely to disregard the quarantine, this looks like being really effective!
This post has been deleted by its author
Oh you can get them. Just not easily if you need them. But tests are also being carried out on a broad spectrum of the population, including those at risk who are effectively in quarantine. Got a relative who's been tested four times over the last couple of months even though she's got virtually no contact with other people and this despite the evidence* that symptonless testing is not very useful.
* The main reason why it's being phased out in Germany for people returning from places with relative high infection rates.
Quarantine in response to notification from the app is voluntary, so you will not be fined if you ignore it (although you will likely be an idiot). Quarantine in response to a call from Serco's track and trace is not voluntary and you may be fined if you ignore the instruction.
"Quarantine in response to notification from the app is voluntary, so you will not be fined if you ignore it (although you will likely be an idiot)."
After a few successive quarantines with no sign of symptoms you might be inclined to place the idiocy indicator elsewhere.
Boots have stopped making appointments for flu jabs because they've been overwhelmed by at risk people who can't get a jab at their GP for several weeks. These are people who are opting to pay for jabs that would normally be free.
Source: at risk spouse who has an appointment for the jab in mid October - booked as soon as offered (over a week ago). Also works in the NHS and was briefed several weeks ago that the plan was to offer jabs as early as possible because of the likely take-up rates this year, and has now been briefed that GPs aren't able to do jabs quickly enough because of reduced throughput rates.
I'm guessing that the plan to offer flu jabs to males over 55 (mooted over the summer) will be postponed until the spring.
This post has been deleted by its author
Every research group that normally figures out which vaccine is best this year was working on Covid. Why would you expect a flu vaccine to be available?
Well, because it is. And it's lucrative to churn out millions of flu jabs. Also kind of interesting how it works. So rely on our seasonal variations and collect samples down under where it's autumn/winter. Analyse the results to find the circulating strains, and by summer, there's usually a pretty good candidate for the northern hemisphere. So start cooking that up ready for our winter season. And it works most of the time, which also means epidemiologists have a pretty good idea how the influenza virus spreads around the world. One of those neat medical advances that's meant hospitals don't need to keep winter wards on stand-by.
Downside I guess is having capacity to churn out vaccines for both flu and Covid given both have the highest impact at the same time, ie winter. I kind of wonder if we'll go back to bottles of vaccine vs single-use/pre-packaged jabs & if that could make production/distribution faster.
Maybe there is a postcode lottery on flu jabs - got mine today, no hassles - only change from normal yearly jab routine was queuing outside the surgery rather than waiting inside (& compulsory mask wearing).
Though might be some alterations to at risk groups receiving it, whilst in queue, heard a person (queuing for normal appointment, not flu jab) saying to his mate that they normally got a jab but had been refused this year, so could be GPs restricting early access to higher risk groups & then making it available to lower risk groups later?
Just take a look at the cases graph on this link
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Fortunately the deaths graph remains low.
We are testing far more now than in the early days so proportion of positive tests is far far lower than before but is a meaningless stat as we don’t have like for like but I think we can all accept that the more you look the more you will find and it was comparatively easy to find positive cases in the early days.
I support the current restrictions even if history will show its an over reaction.
This thing is not binary.
"We are testing far more now than in the early days so proportion of positive tests is far far lower than before but is a meaningless stat as we don’t have like for like"
There is one thing about the 'infection rates" that I just don't agree with.
During the first peak when only hospitals etc were doing tests we had peaks around 6,000 a day, and from this it was deduced that there were 100,000 cases because of the "limited" testing. I see this figure being banded around a lot (yes you BBC).
Now (BBC again) the graphs show a line at which point mass testing became available BUT the rate of detected infections continued to drop -I would have expected it to rise sharply but no it still fell.
Now we have a new 6000 peak but the undetected cases are only around 10-15,000 - a factor of 10 difference..
So they can't both be right, and yes I have seen lots of pictures of the early testing centres being empty so my take is that that 100,000 peak was pure fantasy.
How is it with people returning from abroad, here you are expected to self-quarantine and get a test after 2 days, then wait for the results, if they are negative, you return to "the new normal".
My wife had a common cold a few weeks back, the doctor put her on sick leave for a week (works in a school) and did a test, she got the results the next day (negative). Neither she nor the doctor thought she was infected, but the doctor still did the test as standard procedure.
Terrible. If you return from abroad here, you must self-quarantine for 14 days. Even if during that time you get a test and it comes back negative...you still have to quarantine. Because....reasons.
The only exceptions are if you come from a country that has a "travel corridor" but given those change more than once a week via a spin of the roulette wheel it's safer to make plans assuming they will expect you to quarantine.
To attempt to be fair to phones, it's not three-year-old ones that can't run this. The latest Apple device not to support it is the iPhone 6, released in 2014. Android 5.1 came out in March and April of 2015. I have to give more credit to Apple here, as the iPhone which doesn't support it got four OS releases before getting dropped while most Android 5 devices probably didn't get an update at all, but in each case we're dealing with devices four years old. In my opinion, most of these could continue to run a more up-to-date OS and they should have gotten it, but that's an issue for another discussion.
I'm curious how many phones there are in the UK where users have no control over the upgrades, ie they're controlled by their service provider. One handy side-effect of this appiness is TPTB might decide the operators are obligated to allow (or automagically) keep phones updated.
Yep, I just updated mums iPhone 6s.
Her indoors is stuck with a 6plus and desperately wants an upgrade.
Obviously I’ve made it known only an idiot buys a new iPhone < 7 months from when the new one will be released. The smart move is also the following s model to attain maximum longevity, I think I’ll be upgrading my X to that and mum or dad can get my hand me up/down.
Up until May of this year, the iPhone 6 was the only iPhone that fell within the subsidy range allowed by my employer. If you wanted anything newer, you had to pay the difference yourself. I'm not paying an extra 700€ for a current iPhone that I can't install private apps on or make private calls with... On the other hand, most current Android phones fall within the subsidy.
But, there again, most of our employees use the iPhone for work and have a private phone as well.
Up until May of this year, the iPhone 6 was the only iPhone that fell within the subsidy range allowed by my employer.
Well, I wouldn't be using my work phone for my personal use anyway, because I don't want my employer being able to possibly get a log of personal calls I make &c &c.
But there's an interesting point here: I have experience of similar things where an employer was not willing to supply (or, anyway replace) company phones which were no longer getting patches. That strikes me as very, very shortsighted of them: when there's some breach on an unpatched company phone which lets someone pull all the sensitive email or what-have-you off it then they're probably going to feel a bit silly.
(On the other hand I'm not sure that the iPhone 6 is no longer getting critical patches: I don't have one any more but I did after iOS 13 came out and there were updates to iOS 12 released for the 6 (and presumably other old devices) well after iOS 13. I couldn't work out from Apple whether they were still releasing security fixes for it or not because they're Apple, but I imagine some big customer might be able to ask them and get an answer.
Or 2 million cheap burner phones on PAYG bought from Tesco and used as Covid tracers
Or contact Singapore and see about getting 60m or so of their dongles. Would cost, but provide more certainty/consistency vs the dozens of different 'smart' phones on the market. And it would probably be sensible to prioritise distributing the dongles to the highest risk people first.
I've been using the German version from RKI and it has signalled green (everything OK, no contacts) every day for 4 months, so far.
That said, our region has had 170 cases in total and my town had 0 for a couple of weeks, although there were around half a dozen cases last week. The same with work, the town was also zero for a long time and is still in single figures.
Several experts have gone on the record in the last few days stating that apps are only a secondary means of tracing, and that human intervention is the most effective method. Unfortunately, these days if you want to do anything at all you must have an "app". But demanding users of an app upgrade their phones to use it (particularly when it's supposedly such an important app) is just another example of the all too prevalent arrogance of web devs - "it works fro me on my hot kit, so you must upgrade". It should be possible to write an app of this apparently rather simple kind that doesn't need a bleeding edge phone to run.
But in any case a rather obvious point has already been made publicly, that the most potentially vulnerable sectors of the community to COVID (the very old and the very poor) are less likely to [a] have an "upgraded" smart phone and [b] be moving around meeting strangers that much.
Indeed and the numbers from Germany would seem to back this up: 18 million downloads, 5,000 notifications in 3 months in a country with a case load of around 10000 per week. A great success according to the Health Minister, but what else would he say?
BTW. you could, of course, use the same app to map the spread of other dangerous illnesses*. But, having been developed by SAP, this would obviously be an add-on for another € 20 million.
* Apparently, there are indeed other dangerous airborne respiratory diseases! As if SARS-COV2 isn't enough there is something called influenza (or "latin flu") which can also kill people! Run for the hills!
€20m for an add on to look after 18m people isn’t actually too bad.
If only that were true… the statistics suggest otherwise. It's going to be one of the many examples of massive overspend by panicking politicians along with PPE: the German government is on the hook for millions due to an ill-considered, fix-priced, open house tender for protective equipment.
because corona is the new carte blanche…
The phone upgrading bit has nothing to do with apps developers or the government. Apple and Google retro-fitted the API to all supported iOS devices and, in the case of Google, supported and unsupported devices going back Android 6, which is over 5 years old and has been out of support since 2017.
I am not supporting the ham-fisted cock-up train that is the UK's app development strategy, but this is the one part of the chain that they had no influence over.
I agree. In 30 years I rarely (never?) worked with a developer who had an old phone, visual impairment, motor skills impairment, limited access to internet etc. etc. They have serious issues understanding their users; constraints and rely on an experienced product owner to make the product accessble.
Manual logs of visitors will be an essential but time consuming burden on staff for the forseeable future.
A lot of potential false positives unleashed at a Test&Trace system without sufficient testing capability is a recipe for failure.
In my country, the contact tracing app is out for quite a while, but I am not aware of any published figures about the alerts handed out by the app, the number of false positives, etc.
It remains to be seen if the Corona-apps are any good.
I live in a terraced house 5 metres wide. What happens if my neighbour is infected on the other side of the wall? Will I get tagged too?
Or I am sitting on my sofa by the window and the infected builder is parked outside in his van doing his paperwork. Do I get a call?
Can this app see walls? Or only distance?
Can this app see walls? Or only distance?
No, only signal strength and location. You can do some calculations to try and mitigate propagation and absorption issues but false positives are not considered a problem by the app. And, to be fair, by epidemiologists. All track and trace systems can and should yield false positives, this is fine as long as you also pick up the true positives. The app is an attempt to automate a part of the process and thus increase its scale as well as encourage users to take some of the precautions seriously. I remain unconvinced of the efficacy and I'm sure I'm not alone.
No, only signal strength and location. You can do some calculations to try and mitigate propagation and absorption issues but false positives are not considered a problem by the app.
With another lockdown looming, perhaps it's time for some DIY. Just tinfoil the walls, paper or paint, and it'll be fine.
All track and trace systems can and should yield false positives, this is fine as long as you also pick up the true positives.
Or perhaps less fine as the number of tests & positives increase, leading to false positives from people who may have been in proximity with someone that may have been contagious weeks ago.. And are no longer. Any idea how long someone remains registered as unclean before they're deemed no longer a risk?
"All track and trace systems can and should yield false positives, this is fine as long as you also pick up the true positives."
It's what we call a presumptive test and the role, the only role, of a presumptive test is to identify cases for a definitive test. The infrastructure for definitive tests should have been planned for and put in place.
It is a Bluetooth handshake, but it's more accurate to say "within a certain pathloss from the antenna". In open space that may relate to a circle of radius X around the person if they were holding it up over their heads without covering the bt antenna (assuming a decent omnidirectional one), but when it goes in a pocket the circle will deform and contract a bit subject to the propagation of the bt frequency, whatever that might be.
</Pedant mode>
If I’m on a restaurant outdoor terrace and a CV19 carrier is at another table 3 metres away and we are facing away from each other for an hour or more , I feel I am unlikely to be infected.
If I’m in an indoor pub with loud music and face to face with a carrier who is raising his voice at me and close to me to be heard above the noise for 30 seconds, I feel more likely to be infected,
Which one would the app register?
I don't know but quite possibly the wrong one (but what you feel about the probability may also be wrong). These tools are not expected to give the correct answer in all cases and no-one assumes they are. They merely have to give the correct answer often enough to be useful.
> If I’m on a restaurant outdoor terrace and a CV19 carrier is at another table 3 metres away and we are facing away from each other for an hour or more , I feel I am unlikely to be infected.
> If I’m in an indoor pub with loud music and face to face with a carrier who is raising his voice at me and close to me to be heard above the noise for 30 seconds, I feel more likely to be infected,
You don't need an app for that!
You can turn it off if you're alone at home. (It is probably not wise to do so if you are at home but not alone!)
It's pointlessly annoying to do so on Android (there should be a quick icon to do it, or a home-screen widget, or something, but no it's buried two or three screens deep), but it's doable and takes only a few seconds. Just remember to turn it on again (which is just as annoying).
To be fair to Apple - iOS 13.5 will run on an old 2015 iPhone 6s. Apple still support their older hardware with up to date OS versions, but most of the Android phone manufacturers abandon their hardware updates after a couple of years.
(Weird - I am defending Apple, but own Android, and use a PC)
"(Weird - I am defending Apple, but own Android, and use a PC)"
Hey, it's OK not to hate Apple.
All you're doing is pointing out the fact that the OS release dates don't necessarily correspond to the capability of the hardware.
Also, to be fair, the software in question, and the choices made regarding backwards compatibility, weren't made by Apple. Apple simply made the platform, somebody else made the app. So you're not really defending Apple. If that makes you feel any better. :)
Meantime, I own multiple PCs and multiple Android devices and I don't hate Apple, either. In fact I still have an old MacBook sitting in a box somewhere, and my iPhone 3GS still works (granted it's a Frankenphone...), though not for long with 3G being phased out. :( A shame, it's really a nice little phone.
Heck, I still have a PowerBook G3. In a box somewhere. I should dig it out and see if I can sell it to somebody.
The nhs app relies on the api apple and google co developed which, I think, is only available from iOS 13.5 which rules out iPhone 6 and below.
If c apple back ported to iOS 12 older phones could use it too. They’d have to back port a frack ton of other fixes too which I guess they are not interested in doing.
"If c apple back ported to iOS 12 older phones could use it too."
First, these phones need the necessary hardware. There is a reason why some phones could be upgraded to iOS 13.0 and now iOS 14.0, and some couldn't. You know what would be a lot more effective than Apple porting the software back to iOS 12? If the government had a TV advert that doesn't waffle on for most of its time and then shows for two seconds what you should download, but show an advert saying "here's what you have to do if you want to help getting rid of Covid, at no cost to yourself".
And obviously the government had to collect data, even if only part of your postcode. Which, with the other data that gets collected might be enough to convince the paranoid not to use the app. I compromised and looked up the postcode for 10 Downing Street, London, which is SW1A 2AA. If others think the same, Johnson will soon live in a hotspot of viral activity.
Are the England and Wales app going to be sharing the data with the apps from Scotland and NI? As I am sure there are many people who live in one country but travel to another for work or visiting family etc and could be infected?
Also I always thought that Google and Apple has said they only support one app per country using their API?
I think it's just that the app is already set up for the break-up of the UK. So you could say that it's the first post-Brexit app. But seriously, given that foreign travel is a major vector for the virus (especially for helping recent mutations to spread widely), shouldn't all this effort have gone into a worldwide WHO app? Otherwise, reopening borders will just create app mayhem and serious disconnects in tracing.
The app has to know which health service to talk to. Imagine the response from the Qanon tinfoilers if that was mediated by the WHO via, for instance, having a WHO-built app which fetched a table mapping location to health service, or which allowed you to configure which health service you used or something like that. The WHO, after all, are an aspect of the CABAL. Better to have lots of different apps than that. Of course tinfoilers won't use an app anyway because of 5G. Also lots of different apps means lots of nice pork for friends of governments.
"Also, to be fair, the software in question, and the choices made regarding backwards compatibility, weren't made by Apple. Apple simply made the platform, somebody else made the app. So you're not really defending Apple. If that makes you feel any better. :)"
But isn't the limitation in the Google/Apple API ( caused by Bluetooth hardware limitations) So as I understand it ALL apps based on this Google/Apple API have the same limitation around the world
The hardware to support this has been around on better phones since before 2013 and android 4.4. The reasons not to support older phones aren't technical. For the tracing app used in Australia, there are more than a million phones in use that have the proper hardware but just don't work.
"Around 6.4 per cent of all Android downloads are attributed to devices from New Zealand. Why?"
Right now, the NHS app isn't available on Google Play in NZ. And its name doesn' t remotely resemble "NZ COVID tracer". So this is very odd. (Anyone who operates with an NZ SIM in the UK is either nuts or rich and foolish.)
1. Why does the Android version, at least, refuse to run without location services running? I leave GPS, WiFi triangulation and whatever other skullduggery is available for apps that want to know where I am. It shouldn't need location. How come? And why has that not been mentioned before? As I'm definitely a bit of a weirdo for turning it off, presumably 99.9% of Android users don't realise it's happening. What is the data used for? Does it ever leave my device? Why should I trust the a seers, in these circs?
Damn, that's six questions already.
2. What defences does it have against griefer attacks? Eg kids loitering near their school staff room, then falsely telling the app they have tested positove. There are probably others.
"1. Why does the Android version, at least, refuse to run without location services running?"
Android's Bluetooth permissions are a little strange. Fine control of Bluetooth can allow an app to perform some location tracking assuming known devices are nearby, so apps aren't allowed to do it unless they have fine location permission. Unfortunately, enabling this not only allows the app to perform the detailed scans over Bluetooth but also enables them to gather information from the phone's location chips and from WiFi scanning. Google evidently didn't think it was worth splitting this permission into parts. IOS does this differently and lumps that into the Bluetooth permission, so that app is not going to ask while Android's is; again a place where Apple could split up permissions but didn't. The source being available, it seems unlikely that the location is being collected or used in any way. However, the usual conditions apply to that statement, including that the data is now technically available and I have not verified that the source matches the app that is downloaded.
Leaving aside support for Android 5 and earlier, Android 6 to 9 are vulnerable to click-free exploitation by BlueFrag if you turn on Bluetooth as required by the app. Android 10 can only be DOSed.
Security patches may be available, a security update of March 2020 addresses the issue. Unfortunately my Moto G5s is two years old and security updates stopped at August 2019. Customer support told me that no more security updates will be released. YMMV.
I have no other need to enable Bluetooth so I am left with a dilemma. Risk infection of my phone or myself and others. Proof of concept code for BlueFrag is publicly available so even skiddies can write exploits.
The app will not allow me to scan a QR code if Bluetooth is disabled, dumb logic.
The law was badly specified anyway, the customer can scan the QR code in any app they want (doesn't have to be the NHS app) and in any case it says the business must request that the customer scan the QR code but it doesn't say the customer has to comply.
Isn't that the whole point of using the decentralized Apple/Google framework? And the reason the original big-brother surveillance system was rejected. It's not meant to be used to trace, it's meant to be used by the population to figure out if they need to isolate or get a test.
We have a divided society, some consider CV19 to be a problem and consider it important to be aware of and abide by the basic rules of hygiene and social distancing.
The others look for loopholes that mean they are OK (and don't give a shit about the risk they may pose to others) like "I'm young so risk of infection is low and if I am infected the outcome should be good".
The app will give the latter group another loophole "I've got the app, it says I'm OK so I'm OK to go to a crowded venue" and the new restrictions don't matter because "the app".
As for the "my phone is too old" brigade you have options: you don't NEED to use the NHS app and if you read some of the postings above some consider it badly flawed and offers little benefit so keep adhering to the guidelines; if you think the app is a "must have" but haven't got £1k to waste on a flagship premium brand (veblen good) phone then buy a cheap (Android) mobile, Amazon has several at around £50, perfectly adequate 4 star customer ratings.
"I'm not sure many people with a perfectly functioning iPhone 6 would be very happy about downgrading to a £50 landfill Android phone, in the process giving up their entire library of existing apps, just to run a single new app that's of questionable value in itself."
I'd regard a switch from iphone to £50 android as an upgrade.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
