Reply to post: 80%

NHS contact-tracing app is best in the world, says VMware CEO... whose company helped build it

Grease Monkey Silver badge

80%

The gubbermint have already said that they need 80% of smartphone users to use this app in order for it to be useful. They have also said that their path out of lockdown (let's not call it a roadmap because that's meaningless) relies on contact tracing. However they have also said that if the trials don't go well they may move to a decentralized solution as preferred by South Korea.

The first question to ask is a simple one: If South Korea's solution was successful (and it was) why are we re-inventing the wheel? Developing a new app has taken time and money and it's still not over as the app is still being tested.

So the follow up question would be: Users are required to proactively install an app, however the majority already have software on their phones that is tracing their every movement, why not just talk nicely to the providers of this software and ask them to just spam their users in the UK with a simple opt in prompt, would that not be a simpler solution which would reach a wider audience?

The answers to both these questions would be slightly embarrassing for UK.gov. Being as they are: 1. Dom and his team of "misfits" didn't actually bother looking at how South Korea had achieved things they just went off half cock throwing money at the problem (and surely nobody is suggesting they kept any of it). and 2. Yes.

Unfortunately nobody seems to be asking the questions. Or if they are they are not asking them loudly enough in a public enough forum. I would contact my local MP and suggest a question at PMQs but my new MP is not only a Tory who toes the Boris line in all things, but he is also almost invisible. Unlike our previous MP who was not only very contactable, but also very vocal in representing her constituents.

As for Starmer holding the "government to account" he seems to have one topic where he asks for a path out of lockdown and then when he's given one doesn't seem to be able to think of any intelligent questions.

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