NHS Rejects Apple-Google Coronavirus App Plan (bbc.com) 36
The UK's coronavirus contact-tracing app is set to use a different model to the one proposed by Apple and Google, despite concerns raised about privacy and performance. From a report: The NHS says it has a way to make the software work "sufficiently well" on iPhones without users having to keep it active and on-screen. That limitation has posed problems for similar apps in other countries. Experts from GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre have aided the effort. NCSC indicated that its involvement has been limited to an advisory role. "Engineers have met several core challenges for the app to meet public health needs and support detection of contact events sufficiently well, including when the app is in the background, without excessively affecting battery life," said a spokeswoman for NHSX, the health service's digital innovation unit.
OMG THEY SAID NO TO Apple and Google. (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple and Google are far from perfect.
Health Care doesn't mesh well with Apple and Google Tech Culture environment. The data needs to be secure, and accurate with little room for error. As an ops try next week when there is a patch is often fatal.
Apple and Google's common health care offerings are around silly vitals for exercise, or just giving them extra processing power to chunk over all the data.
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can we not be the leader at anything?
Bad teeth, worse food, and most football hooligans per capita not good enough for you?
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"lager louts"
Real Ale snob detected. Username checks out.
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That sounds like Turkey.
You do realise that British dental health is better than American dental health? That no country on the planet does better spotted dick with custard? That foreign police attack British football fans at a far higher rate than British football fans attack anybody?
Now look. You've made me go and point out how silly you are. What a waste of everybody's time.
you can't give your rights with an EULA in NHS! (Score:2)
you can't give your rights with an EULA in NHS!
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I trust the Google/Apple system that is well documented and will be at least partly open source over whatever GCHQ has cooked up.
Apparently they have managed to bypass whatever protections Apple put in place. No way I'm going near that.
What a disaster. We really need contact tracing but not at the expense of privacy and security.
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Apparently they have managed to bypass whatever protections Apple put in place. No way I'm going near that.
If they are bypassing protections then Apple won't let them on the AppStore. Very easy. No, what happens is that if you don't have the same access as Apple, then you have some technical problems (fully intentional), and they are solving some technical problems, but not all. At the very least, this means that the app will empty your battery quite quickly - apart from privacy problems.
I have the impression that someone quite at the top of this development is just butthurt. I've seen Apple/Google's API, and
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This could get interesting. Apple wouldn't let them use NFC for their EU Settlement Scheme app (which they bungled anyway). This time though it's even more directly life and death so if the UK government asks them to distribute it they would be in a difficult position.
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Apple has so far always said that they offer an API for contact tracing, and that one should be used instead. Germany has switched to that approach now. The UK will as well as I don't think the technical issues on the iPhone are solvable without cooperation from Apple.
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GCHQ probably know exactly where everybody is all the time anyway. But still, NHS getting help from them is very very off-putting, I don't particularly want to turn on RFID.
Apple should fix their shit quickly, they can so they should. The gov't could whip up a quick law with massive fines if they don't, Apple have a new bunch of phones coming out soon.
Either way, if the gov does release the app then they need to text and email everybody to let them know how to install it. And I think they should offer a fin
Probably a bad choice (Score:5, Insightful)
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without imposing STASI-level surveillance on every subject.
Well there's your problem!
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Agreed but governments might like the added bonus of tracking and their hands on the data... something that the Apple/Google offering didn't allow; A&G only offered phone 2m/6' connect time & duration info with no location and that data stays on the phone. Governments might like location & user info and that all pushed to a server of their choice; It's not needed for the person to person contact info; which at the core is what the stated purpose is all about. In this case Big Brother is NHS r
Probably a good choice (Score:2)
They should certainly look at incorporating the Apple/Google solution once it becomes available, but even then for maximum coverage they can't rely solely on that API. Rollout of OS updates to Android devices in particular are notoriously slow.
Probably for the next pandemic the Apple/Google API will have sufficient penetration, but for this one you need to deal with the mobile
Apple/Google Plan B (Score:3)
First, installing an app without the Apple/Google API is now pointless. Because it cannot access the data that was collected and cannot warn anyone in contact with the infected person. So the NHS better supply an app providing this API.
Second, when the infected person gives out a warning, any phone close to theirs will send you a message that you have been close to someone infected, and to get details, you better download an app. Again, the NHS better supply an app providing this API, or the user doesn't actually get any of the useful information that was collected.
Re: Apple/Google Plan B (Score:4, Informative)
I am pretty sure the data collection is triggered by a compatible app. There will be one central server from which phones can download a list of positively tested IDs. Matching with locally stored contacts happens on your phone. Your proximity contact list never leaves the phone.
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Hopefully there will be an open source app.
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Indeed, and Google announced the same.
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Hopefully Google and Apple will provide neutral apps or maybe everyone can just pick one, let's say the German one because they like privacy, and use that. Sorry Germany.
Of course they did (Score:5, Funny)
It is being adopted in the EU, the UK can't have anything to do with that. Democracy requires we not have anything to do with the EU ever again.
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And, more importantly, it is not compliant with the Orwell Hanbook.
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Don't be silly. We're very happy to trade with the EU, visit EU countries, share data with them and have sex with their people.
We also have alignment with EU countries on major geopolitical issues and even on domestic matters. For instance France's preference for contact tracking is the same as the UK's.
Your pitiful attempt at satire might be amusing if it even closely resembled anything approaching reality.
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Your pitiful attempt at satire might be amusing if it even closely resembled anything approaching reality.
Moderators disagree with you. It's okay. You can laugh. It's therapeutic even, perfect to combat a Brit's most common trait of undiagnosed clinical depression.
Even in the UK the sun does occasionally shine. I'm told it will happen on the 3rd Thursday of July this year, so get your tanning oil ready.
Some nonsense here... (Score:4, Interesting)
So either the phone's OS is part of the monitoring system, or actually there's a separate low level routine sniffing and interrogating through BLE. So, in a year's time will turning off bluetooth no longer be possible?
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I'm not sure that is possible. I'm therefore very sceptical. Many initiatives have tried and failed to solve Bluetooth contact tracking on an iPhone without the app being opened.
I think the approach is all wrong (Score:2)
The goal should just be to keep people distanced 6feet apart from each other. The app would be just as effective in doing that if it didn't track anything or send notifications to people, just instead if it detected *any* other phone within 6ft the phone would audibly "cough" very loudly until people no other phone is within the danger range. I think it would trigger a natural instinctive walking away from other people.
The thing is, if it's only going to send a notification if you've been confirmed to hav
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Re:I think the approach is all wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is, if it's only going to send a notification if you've been confirmed to have the virus, then there is a period where you could be contagious and not know it. So baring that, it's just an app that tracks you, and who you've been around. And the quality of the data is going to be questionable at best.
Two details.
A) Your assumption that any one solution must be, and ever will be, 100% is in error. This was never an expectation nor will you ever see that delivered.
B) Do you not realize your "problem" is exactly what this function is for?
Yes, once you show symptoms that means you have been infected and spreading it already.
Do you remember every last place you have been and person you were near in these past two weeks?
Of course not. Thus why this software exists. It remembers that for you, with time stamps.
Once you find out today you are infected, it can pull ID hashes between zero and -15 days ago, and you can choose to send the notification to those IDs you just found out you are sick and may have already given it to those people. Especially those people in the zero to -10 day window that are also not yet showing symptoms.
Those individuals will each know for themselves if they are in a high risk group.
The ones that are can then act usefully on that notification.
They can call up their doctor and say with certainty that "xx days and yy hours ago, someone somewhere was within 6 feet of me, and just found out they were infected."
That is all the info needed anyway.
Why does it matter WHO? It's the same if it was you or someone else that spread it to them.
Why does it matter WHERE? The chance of catching it remains identical no matter the location.
All that matters are the time stamps. WHEN the exposure happened.
The fact it lacks who and where does not mean it is a failure. Your assumption that matters at all is what is in the wrong here.
That it contains all the time stamps is all that matters, and the phone storing that matters for *exactly* the reason you say it is pointless. Because you will not remember by that point.
("You" being figurative, not you personally. Nearly all of us aren't going to remember that type of information. That's just how human memory works.)
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Honestly, had I not participated in this conversation I would have modded this post up as Insightful.
My quip was fixating on the concept of a phone alerting you that you could be in danger, specifically that I think (at least where I live) people are not taking social distancing nearly as seriously as they should. And that I'm certain this wouldn't have blown up as badly if they did. In 2 neighboring provinces to my own, there hasn't been any new cases in about a week, and the number of known active cases