UK App To Track Coronavirus Spread To Be Launched (theguardian.com) 45
The UK public will soon be able to find out if they may have been in the vicinity of people unwell with coronavirus via a new contact-tracing app, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has said. From a report: At No 10's daily press conference on Sunday, Hancock said the NHS app would allow people to report their symptoms, and then the app would anonymously alert other app users that had been in contact with that person in recent days. The Guardian reported last week that the app, developed by NHSX -- the health service's digital transformation arm -- with academic and industry partners, is in the advanced stages of evaluation and is weeks away from being ready to be deployed. About 60% of the adult population would need to sign up and engage with the app by registering their symptoms or positive test results for it to be effective. Their proximity to other users would be logged, and they would follow advice given in alerts to self-isolate -- even in cases where they were not aware of having been in contact with someone infected.
Government wet dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine that, being able to track the whereabouts of all your citizens and having them do it voluntarily. But of course this would only be a temporary measure, until things get under control. Then it would go away. Just like the DHS and TSA and other government departments, as well as the Patriot Act, that we were told were only temporary.
Newsflash - this shit never goes away. Don't sign up for the App if you value your privacy.
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This app is doubly insulting:
1/ It's basically a solution fo the problem the government perceives, that people are too stupid or too unruly to do as they're told - stay at home and maintain social distances. Well guess what: most people are intelligent enough and responsible enough to do it on their own. No need for the nanny app.
2/ That high-pitched noise you hear is George Orwell spinning at 15,000 rpm in his grave.
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This is the UK, home of the ASBO, where you can be arrested for being anti-social.
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It's called Airstrip One now, citizen!
It's not a solution to dumb people (Score:4, Interesting)
If we can get past the privacy hurdles it would be a God send. Properly done contract tracing is highly effective at stopping the spread of disease. But it's difficult and expensive.
Automating it with technology would stop this pandemic in it's tracks. You'd get an alert, call a public health official, they'd come to your door and test you, you'd be quarantined for 2-3 weeks and that would be that. No more spread.
But it's probably impossible to get past the privacy issues.
I said this elsewhere, but I think this is going to be forced on us. It's too valuable. Our leaders will push it on us. We have a ruling class, we just don't like to acknowledge their existence. We should start thinking about how to limit and mitigate the privacy damage it can do.
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The problem is you need a large number of people to buy in or it still spreads. Most people are buying in, but there are plenty of examples where they're not - spring break booze cruises, people gathering in p
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"George Orwell spinning at 15,000 rpm in his grave."
LOL, was about to say nobody can hear 15Khz in here. Ok 250Hz(15000rpm) is fast enough for a spinning corps, but high pitch nahh.
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Actually, such an app would not have to track your whereabouts.
The idea is to use bluetooth, I believe, and then work out who you are near. It does not need to know where you were, when you were near them. It would just need to know that you were near, and how long that proximity was. The app them uploads this information. You do not even need to know who is who. When someone is diagnosed with coronavirus, you find their bluetooth ID at this point, and then you warn everyone who has a co-located ID.
Actually
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Maybe but trust in the government is very low and I'd be very wary of installing this app.
It needs to be open source at the very least.
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They have said that the source will be available (whether it will be open source in the sense of free software I do not know).
You say that trust in the government is low, and that is true, but there is different trust in different parts. The NHS is, by and large, trusted.
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Unless I can compile it myself, that's pointless. Can you verify whether the code they publish is the code that compiled to the app you're supposed to install?
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Actually, such an app would not have to track your whereabouts.
Good luck convincing the public of that.
Just yesterday I watched BBC news on the app Singapore was using, interviewing two Singaporeans with both very supportive of the app, and explained that the app did NOT collect your location but only whom you had close contact with (much like this app), all data will be deleted after 20-some days, etc, and then ended with an extra "interview" with a "security expert" talking about the *worry* of the invasion of privacy because some government *might* use such app to t
Re:Government wet dream... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know about the UK app, but the Icelandic app:
* Is open source.
* Stores your data in your own phone. The government does not have access to it.
* Only stores the most recent 14 days (older data is automatically deleted)
* If you get a diagnosis, you're asked to share your data. You are not required to.
* Approving sharing your data requires your authorization with a password.
* Your data is anonymized as much as possible before it's shared if you choose to share it.
* Other people's phones download any shared data to compare with where they've been.
The biggest problem with the Icelandic app was insufficient testing on Android. It was a major power hog due to buggy detection of whether the phone was moving or not, leaving it constantly polling the position every minute, even when stationary. They've fixed it in Github but not rolled out the new version yet. Another bug was the fact that sometimes the app closes and doesn't automatically restart.
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In general, I think the worry about these sort of apps secretly being a tool for intrusive government overreach is ridiculous. If the government wants to pry into your private life, they're not going to do it with a voluntary app which has to be manually installed, can be removed or disabled at any point in time, and will only be used for a brief period of time (e.g. until the disease is under control). They'll just sniff up your data on the backend, install backdoors, etc. For crying out load, you're lite
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Re: Government wet dream... (Score:2)
https://github.com/aranja/rakn... [github.com]
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One has to wonder why the UK doesn't simply latch on to this, wouldn't that save a lot of money and accomplish the goal they allegedly have?
Exactly what it is! (Score:1)
Dump your smart phone (Score:1)
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Nah. Do this instead [wondershare.com].
Kevin Bacon (Score:2)
You'd have to read up on contract tracing (Score:3)
Well, I guess we're doing this (Score:2, Flamebait)
It's also going to be mandatory. You won't be let into a grocery store without it. You won't be allowed to go to work without it. etc, etc.
But without it we'd need to keep the economy shut down for 12-18 months while we wait for a vaccine. That's not happening. For one thing, our ruling class simply isn't going to allow it. For another the rank and file aren't going to either.
It's going to get abused, that's for sure. The most c
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Well, this may have other effects that are worse....
If they know everyone has a mail in vote, then the anonymity of the voting booth is potentially lost.
What if you have people BUYING votes?? They pay your to vote for candidate X and they can verify this before you seal the envelope.
What about coercion ?
Ok...'bad' things will happen to you if you don't vote for candidate Y.
What if they hint your job hangs on who your vote g
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The UK already has postal voting on request and, of course, answers to all of the questions that you raise.
1) The anonymity of the voting booth is lost
There is no difference here. The postal votes are opened in the same was as a ballot when full scrutiny is open to any interested parties. You use two envelopes, one identified, one note.
2) What about coercion
It could happen, but is subject to extremely strong criminal sanctions
3) What if they hint your job hangs...
People do this all the time (i.e. candidate
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What if you have people BUYING votes?? They pay your to vote for candidate X and they can verify this before you seal the envelope.
What about coercion ?
Ok...'bad' things will happen to you if you don't vote for candidate Y.
It is a legitimate concern, since it's now impossible for the people who count the votes to know whether anyone voted without any outside interference. But it's difficult to make interference scale to the point where it can influence the outcome of the election, since most constituencies in the UK have tens of thousands of voters. And if you do manage to make the interference scale, it's difficult to conceal it from the authorities. The UK is not (yet) some third-world shithole, where politicians are more l
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"It is a legitimate concern, since it's now impossible for the people who count the votes to know whether anyone voted without any outside interference"
And this is the problem. You need widespread interference to achieve anything. And, widespread interference is difficult to achieve without someone finding out which is tied to a strong police response.
There are much better ways to achieve the same ends. For example, the last election in the UK was timed to the end of the University term, so that students we
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How so?
It has never been in the past..
I mean, hell...the younger you are, you are more mobile and able to get out and physically vote, whereas for the elderly, it is harder, especially if the weather is poor.
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Do you think that's why Trump votes by mail? So his handlers can check who he voted for?
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"It's also going to be mandatory"
Don't be silly. There is a significant percentage of the population who do not have a smart phone. Are they to be barred from grocery stores and left to starve?
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Are they to be barred from grocery stores and left to starve?
Don't give the buggers ideas.
If they're in an at risk community (Score:3)
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Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea did this. Even privacy "Germany" in the EU did tracking by health experts to find people sick with wuflu.
Why an app? Just use the smartphone data when connected to a tower.
Something the GCHQ and UK police had skills at over every generation of cellphone and smartphone.
Re "It's going to get abused" then have medical experts and the police do the health tracking. No need for a new app layer.
Got wuflu? Look back over that persons movements going
false positives from bluetooth range (Score:3)
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"This will work"
If enough people install it.
They won't have a choice (Score:2)
The value of it is just too high. It will allow us to re-open the economy months earlier. We have a ruling class, and they are going to force this on us. Your boss will require it. The owner of grocery stores will require it. You can quit your job and stay home, but that serves them just fine.
I mentioned this elsewhere, but this is going to happen. The people in charge will want it. On the plus side when we're all forced t
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I think it is extremely unlikely that "they" will mandate it. They would be likely to irritate enough people doing that, that it would back fire, aside from having to deal with the issue of people without smartphones, or without space, or without a battery that can cope.
I doubt even the police or spies would want this. What is the point of having an app for spying on peoples movements, if the app actually tells you what it does? If MI6 can track your location from your phone, which they probably can, they a
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Security conscious families will soon have a "grocery phone". Whoever has to go where the app is required will get it.
I know that I'll designate one of the phones here as the "grocery phone". Rest assured that it will be offline whenever I don't have to enter a store.
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Too little, too late (Score:1)
The first case in the UK was on 31st January, Brexit-eve which had the governments entire focus. Then Boris Johnson went on two-week holiday to celebrate and he took absolutely no action until the 11th of March, six weeks later. Action that looked a lot like panicked over reaction on the same day that the World Health Organisation announced COVID-19 was a pandemic.
Four weeks after the EU had started a plan to ramp up the PPE and Ventilators procurement and specifically offered to overlook Brexit to allow th
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Who is acting in good faith here?
If one of options is Boris, you can bet it's not him.
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Well, at least he got what he deserved.
Then again, not really, last thing I heard is he recovered.