{"id":32112,"date":"2021-04-12T17:08:19","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T21:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=32112"},"modified":"2021-04-12T17:11:23","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T21:11:23","slug":"nhs-covid-19-app-rejected-on-privacy-grounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/12\/nhs-covid-19-app-rejected-on-privacy-grounds\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS COVID-19 App Rejected on Privacy Grounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leo Kelion<\/a> (via MacRumors<\/a>, Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

An update to England and Wales’s contact tracing app has been blocked for breaking the terms of an agreement made with Apple and Google.<\/p>\n

The plan had been to ask users to upload logs of venue check-ins - carried out via poster barcode scans - if they tested positive for the virus. This could be used to warn others.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Under the terms that all health authorities signed up to in order to use Apple and Google’s privacy-centric contact-tracing tech, they had to agree not to collect any location data via the software.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Florian Mueller<\/a>:<\/p>\n

With UK shops, restaurants and pubs reopening today thanks to a relaxation of COVID prevention rules, it was actually a very smart idea for the NHS COVID-19 app to ask users to scan QR codes when entering such places<\/a>, thereby enabling the system to inform people if they had been in a virus hotspot at a critical moment.<\/p>

In the Western world, contact tracing has failed to make a noteworthy positive impact. In parts of Asia, however, those apps made a huge contribution because people were not even allowed to enter restaurants unless the contact-tracing apps on their smartphones greenlighted them (meaning they had not recently been near an infected person for a certain period). It made a whole lot of sense for the UK to adopt what worked in Asia.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

About a year ago, Nature<\/i> reported on contact tracing apps<\/a> and mentioned that an earlier version of the NHS app was tested, “[b]ut because this app eschews Apple and Google’s protocol, it will not be able to run in the background on iPhones.” An expert called this “a nail in the coffin.” Obviously, contact tracing is of little use if you actually have to have the contact tracing app running in the foreground all the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

How should Apple and Google weigh potential health benefits vs. privacy? And what about people who want<\/em> to contribute their data but aren’t allowed to?<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n