UK Contact Tracing App Failed To Flag People Exposed To COVID-19 46
The COVID-19 exposure notification app used in England and Wales failed to warn users if they were in close contact with potentially infectious COVID-19 patients. Because of the error, thousands of people were not told to quarantine even when they should have been, according to the Sunday Times, which first reported the flaw. The Verge reports: The app was launched on September 24th, and there have been 19 million downloads since. It's built using Google and Apple's Bluetooth Low Energy-based system, which monitors nearby phones. If someone tests positive for COVID-19, their app can alert the phones that they were in contact with. The UK originally planned to use its own app, sidestepping the Google and Apple system, but reversed course in June. Since its launch, the app flagged few users for possible exposure, according to the Sunday Times. Engineers figured out the reason why last week. The app was originally built to simply recommend that anyone closer than 2 meters for more than 15 minutes to someone who later tested positive should quarantine, according to The Guardian. But just before the launch, it was adjusted to take into account when the sick person's symptoms began.
Research shows that people tend to have high levels of virus in their nose and throat, and may be more contagious, around a day before they start to show symptoms. Levels stay high the first few days of symptoms, and then drop off. If someone was in contact with a sick person outside of that window, the UK app would consider the interaction less risky. If they were in contact inside of that window, on the other hand, it would only take three minutes of contact to trigger an alert. The adjusted app did calculate those new risk levels. But the thresholds at which a person would actually get an alert were left unchanged, according to a government blog post. Without the updated thresholds, a user could have spent up to 15 minutes with a highly infectious person and up to 40 minutes with a less-contagious person without getting an alert, according to The Guardian.
Research shows that people tend to have high levels of virus in their nose and throat, and may be more contagious, around a day before they start to show symptoms. Levels stay high the first few days of symptoms, and then drop off. If someone was in contact with a sick person outside of that window, the UK app would consider the interaction less risky. If they were in contact inside of that window, on the other hand, it would only take three minutes of contact to trigger an alert. The adjusted app did calculate those new risk levels. But the thresholds at which a person would actually get an alert were left unchanged, according to a government blog post. Without the updated thresholds, a user could have spent up to 15 minutes with a highly infectious person and up to 40 minutes with a less-contagious person without getting an alert, according to The Guardian.
Re: (Score:2)
Similar issue in Denmark (Score:4, Informative)
The corresponding Danish contact tracking was also buggy: https://www.thelocal.dk/202009... [thelocal.dk]
The worst part probably being that the company which developed the app (Netcompany) was pretty arrogant about the app having not reported contacts for months by framing it more as an opportunity to improve the app than a bug.
Re:Similar issue in Denmark (Score:5, Insightful)
In the UK it's all corruption, contracts for this sort of thing are given to friends of the ruling Tory Party, not to people who are actually competent.
They put the most incompetent person they could find in charge of Test and Trace too, and predictably it's failing. There is someone who is supposed to investigate this kind of corrupt hiring but his wife was also corruptly hired by the government.
Anyway I think we can pretty much write off any efforts to control the virus now. We will just have to live with it ripping through the country until a vaccine is ready, and hope that Tory corruption doesn't screw that up too much.
Re:Similar issue in Denmark (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think corruption is even the worst of it. I think there is just a lot of 'oh, we need someone to do this really important job - Boris, didn't you have a friend at the country club who knew something about computers?'.
The ruling etonian elite are so isolated in their bubble of privilege they probably think the likes of Dido Harding is doing an incredible job, simply because most of them can't even fathom how a toaster works.
The country is well and truly stuffed. Every year I've been here there are news stories in winter about how the NHS has become overloaded, and hospitals are declaring local emergencies. Even if the virus was only as bad as a mild flu (it's not), the additional demand on resources would have caused a massive overwhelming of the under-resourced NHS, so it was all going to go bad under any scenario.
I have a grave fear now that the country will spiral into an economic depression from which this government has no capacity to pull it out. They have just hammered the economy with all the uncertainty around Brexit in addition to having no clear strategy for dealing with the virus. At some point you've destroyed enough people's hope that they just give it in and the economic death spiral starts to accelerate. Add to this that they've spent all their powder trying to kick start the economy while the virus was still not dealt with, and we might be looking at exchange controls, grovelling to the IMF, and some level of marshall law by next year.
Re:Similar issue in Denmark (Score:5, Interesting)
Dido Harding has long been a friend of the Tory Party, and is married to a Tory MP. She was put in the Lords because she always votes with the Tory government. Even just giving jobs to people you are friends with instead of people who are qualified is corruption.
The Tories have been trying to destroy the NHS for a decade. They are subtle about it, they pretend they are funding it well but actually it's both underfunded and being privatised.
The coming recession is going to be the worst in modern history. Not only have we completely botched the COVID-19 response, we are headed towards a disastrous no-deal brexit. In fact even the deal they are trying to get from the EU will be a disaster - for example most car manufacturing won't be viable under the proposed rules.
Fixing issues in Denmark [or England] (Score:2)
So this is the current end of the depth-first search of the first real branch of the discussion. I guess everyone (save 2 hidden) should be congratulated for ignoring the AC FP troll branch.
However, the main topic was not Denmark, and that Subject was a disappointment anyway. There was a Shakespeare joke begging to be made there. Something about losing your sense of smell to Covid-19 and missing the funny smell in Denmark?
The topic of political corruption is important, but kind of a diversion. Covid-19 is a
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think corruption is even the worst of it.
It's both coming together though isn't it? You are probably right that Dido Harding is put there without guile or understanding. Under her, though Serco and Deloitte have very deliberately pushed themselves forward and taken over things that local doctors and public health people would at least have understood. As it is, instead of doing it the best and easiest way the government's friends wanted it to “cement the position of the private sector” in the NHS supply chain [theguardian.com].
If Dido had been in cha
Re: (Score:2)
> some level of marshall law by next year
So you think it's so bad that the civilian government will be unable to operate and the military will have to take over for the the government? If you really think martial law (law enforcement by the military) is likely, that's a pretty bad situation.
Re: (Score:3)
> some level of marshall law by next year
So you think it's so bad that the civilian government will be unable to operate and the military will have to take over for the the government? If you really think martial law (law enforcement by the military) is likely, that's a pretty bad situation.
Six months ago I would have thought it absurd as well, but my observation on the ground is that a lot of people are going to ignore the rules. This means the lockdown will not work like last time, and they will have to bring in harsher measures. But this will likely drive more people to ignore rules. Farage is now spearheading the anti-lockdown movement, and that will add 'legitimacy' to the cause. The UK police do not have the capacity to enforce the rules (UK does not have a gendarmerie/carabinieri like o
Re: (Score:1)
These contact tracing apps may be too shaky to rely on for Covid-19, but the world needs to have a debugged version deployed and ready for the next pandemic.
How about Canada? (Score:2)
How's the Canadian app doing?
Not surprising (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Test and Trace is separate to the app.
The app uses the Google/Apple system and is anonymous. Test and Trace involves actually doing COVID-19 tests on people and then asking for details of their contacts to try to trace them manually, with data handed to police for enforcement.
Re: (Score:2)
with data handed to police for enforcement.
Supposedly the data only gets handed over if the Police suspect that someone is avoiding isolation and need to check if they are still supposed to be there. This may be a problem because it means almost nobody is going round to actually check people are home rather than just answering their mobile phones.
Re: (Score:1)
The best way to encourage people to isolate is to have local tracing and local support.
Someone I know in China had to isolate when she returned from abroad. The local government came to check on her every day, bringing food and supplies from the local shops.
It would also really help if there was 100% sick pay available too. Not losing 2 weeks wages would really help people stick to the rules.
Re: (Score:2)
The best way to encourage people to isolate is to have local tracing and local support.
Someone I know in China had to isolate when she returned from abroad. The local government came to check on her every day, bringing food and supplies from the local shops.
It would also really help if there was 100% sick pay available too. Not losing 2 weeks wages would really help people stick to the rules.
Totally right, I think that will really help. However I also know there are quite a number of people who simply won't. Almost as a matter of principle. The idiot "face nappy" people that have spread it all over the Midwest of the US and the North of England. If they know they are getting someone to come round once a day they will wait for the person to appear and then go out for a drink in their local pub under a false name. There has to be a really big carrot, but a small stick is needed too.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure how anonymous it is. The app may be anonymous in how it handles the data but the fact that advertisers use Bluetooth to track people may be the best excuse to get people to keep Bluetooth on. They even created beacons just to track people with Bluetooth. Until there are privacy laws that actually punish invasion of privacy and laws that give you the right to own your device I wouldn't hold my breath in declaring the app anonymous. There are other issues too, such as the IP that connects to the clou
Re: (Score:3)
> Not sure how anonymous it is. The app may be anonymous in how it handles the data but the fact that advertisers use Bluetooth to track people
It's very anonymous. They did a great job. Prostitutes use cars. That doesn't mean that all use of cars is prostitution. Same with Bluetooth and ads.
Worked for me (Score:1)
The app worked for me at least partly. All the contacts I knew about were informed. Of course I had already told them myself. The normal contact tracing by Serco, Deloitte and Dido Harding took another four days to contact the same people. Even if it's not perfect, definitely everyone in the UK should install it since those extra days of warning might be the thing that stops you infecting your friends Grandma.
legitimate threshold choice (Score:5, Informative)
Re: legitimate threshold choice (Score:1)
Can we mod this up. Thanks for this alternative narrative.
Re: (Score:3)
I think the BBC article is old and happened before people found out why this happened. The contact tracing app was supposed to ensure that you isolated if you were definitely more than 15 minutes within 2m during the infectious period no matter what. It wasn't doing what it was specified to do and so it was a bug.
The news is that they identified what happened, that changes of the app after testing broke it from doing what it was specified to do and so what was thought to just be tuning before turns out to
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Totally agree, this seems to be the truth, see some more technical details here https://www.turing.ac.uk/blog/... [turing.ac.uk] (also linked in the BBC Article).
Unfortunately though, this reasonable change doesn't fit the 'government is incompetent' narrative that's being pushed. (They may be, but this decision is not the evidence you're looking for)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
No it isn't. Its about saving some lives.
Re: (Score:3)
Who gets to use all this data?
You
The idea behind contact tracing apps like this one is that you send a bunch of random numbers to people around you, which get recorded. These are just numbers, no personal information in here. For now, there is absolutely nothing you can do with these numbers. Now, if you get tested positive for Covid-19, you upload the list of random numbers you sent to a pubic server. Again, it is just a list of numbers, the only information people have is that these numbers are associated with someone who has Covid-19
Re: (Score:2)
Now, if you get tested positive for Covid-19, you upload the list of random numbers you sent to a pubic server.
Uploading to a pubic server after a positive test for Covid? Better do it through a glory hole.
Re: (Score:2)
The only person who has it is you (Score:2)
> Who gets to use all this data?
The only person who HAS any data about you is you.
Every couple hours, each phone picks a random number.
You exchange random numbers with people you spend time with. You phon saves those random numbers for a few days. So you know that you received the number "8573947204858".
If someone tests positive for covid, they send the list of random numbers they chose to the list of "random numbers chosen by infected people".
A couple times a day, your phone retrieves the list of rand
Re: (Score:1)
You need to look into what happens when you establish a connection to the internet. Virus tracking is implemented on web pages here in Norway. None of that is my data anymore. You seem to assume we are all living under one government. Why?
Missed the headline? (Score:2)
This article and conversation is about the system used in the UK and elsewhere, the protocol jointly developed by Apple and Google.
Norway, a country clinging to socialism where the government put up a statute of Vladimir Lenin, had an app that invades the privacy of citizens.
I don't know if you read the headline, but here we're talking about the UK app, which is the same protocol used in US states.
important point (Score:2)
Open source allow's this type of inspection rather than just assumption - and the correction THAT'S important it was corrected!
Probably doesn't matter (Score:2)
Add that to the only 19 million downloads (from a country with a population of 66 million - and how many of those downloads are still active users?) and the effect that the app has, is at best marginal.
Not the UK - only England and Wales (Score:4, Informative)
Can I just point out that this is an app for England and Wales, not the UK. Scotland has its own app, which is based off the app developed for Ireland and open sourced. I believe that's the same for Northern Ireland. We are very lucky in Scotland to have a certain level of separation from Tory corruption and incompetence.
Ah Tory Britian (Score:2)
symptoms (Score:2)
When was this drivel written? 9 months ago? Because I thought we all knew that yes COVID-19 is infectious before symptoms appear but more to the point a sizeable chunk of the population doesn't have symptoms but they are still highly infectious.
Back in March I was in a state of di
Re: (Score:2)
When was this drivel written? 9 months ago? Because I thought we all knew that yes COVID-19 is infectious before symptoms appear but more to the point a sizeable chunk of the population doesn't have symptoms but they are still highly infectious.
No we apparently don't all know this, because I'm repeatedly hearing people in my community bitching about "why are people getting tested if they don't even have any symptoms. It's idiotic." Yes, it's highly likely it's willful ignorance, but the fact remains they're ignorant about this fact.
England and Wales app thanks (Score:2)
New Zealand Doesn't Use Bluetooth (Score:2)