Would you install and use an NHS Covid tracking app?

[glazbagun]

pip t said:

bad company said:

I just deleted the app from my phone.

Your choice of course, but deleting the app from your phone will have no effect on the the data NHS T&T may pass to the police in the right circumstances. It's entirely unrelated.

Sadly though this is going to be an effect of this news. The vast majority of the population conflate the manual contact tracing system with the app, and will therefore be discouraged from using it.

It's part of this increasing obsession from the government of using legislation rather than persuading people to do the right thing - the stick rather than the carrot.

Same with venues selling customer information.

The government have grown so used to treating us like children and we so used to mistrusting their motives that we are becoming ungovernable. Plus the news media have been sepsis for pretty much a decade now.

[pip t]

grumbledoak said:

Good.

Yes I understand how it works. But I understand "temptation", "scope creep", and "untrustworthy wkers" too.

But fundamentally, the data that would be useful to the police simply doesn't exist in the app system. I completely agree with you that if they could they would (And the sentiments you've mentioned above!), but they can't.

If we'd used the first version of the app that got abandoned they absolutely would - but the version in use is useless to the police in terms of enforcement.

[Graveworm]

bad company said:

How will NHS Test & Trace have data on me to pass to police if I’ve deleted the app?

They never had any data from you to pass to the police from the app. They would never have any data that would be any use to the police from the app.

[Graveworm]

Gecko1978 said:

They already have your details. They have a pattern of your movenents. If person A is inffected and they wrre in the past near you (work mate) then i assume track and trace would make same assumption and you will get a text to self isolate.

They have none of that. With or without deleting the app
The app doesn't work like that, nor can it.
You assume wrong.

It would be like thinking someone could know you were in WH Smiths in Waterloo following a tannoy broadcast, saying anyone who was recently in WH Smiths you may have left your purchases behind.

Edited by Graveworm on Sunday 18th October 11:45

[hotchy]

What did you think the app would be used for? This is only the start.

[steveo3002]

lying pack of weasels , can easily see em making a change youve agreed to somewhere to allow the app to do whatver they like all in the name of saving grandma

[bitchstewie]

survivalist said:

I know it’s track and trace giving data to the police, but it does beg the question as to what the app actually DOES do? The end result seems pretty useless.

Unsurprisingly for a government IT project it just seems to be a massive waste of time and money.

Used properly it can do a fair bit.

The difficulty is there is so much bullst being spread about it that people don't approach it rationally.

You see it on this thread where people conflate what is done from data gathered as part of a manual process and anonymous data from an app that literally doesn't have any personally identifiable information on you.

[Graveworm]

steveo3002 said:

lying pack of weasels , can easily see em making a change youve agreed to somewhere to allow the app to do whatver they like all in the name of saving grandma

Yes but by the same logic they have already tracked you down using the dozens of other ways they can already do that. Then the gamma rays will start.
The code for the app is open source, anyone can and many do keep track of exactly what it does and any changes it makes.

[pip t]

bhstewie said:

Used properly it can do a fair bit.

The difficulty is there is so much bullst being spread about it that people don't approach it rationally.

You see it on this thread where people conflate what is done from data gathered as part of a manual process and anonymous data from an app that literally doesn't have any personally identifiable information on you.

Indeed.

All things being equal, the app essentially does the same as the manual test and trace service, and in some ways can do it better, as it doesn't rely on you knowing the details of the people concerned (Limitations of Bluetooth proximity sensing notwithstanding).

The app however relies on people using it well. It's impossible to enforce anything from it. It relies on both people trusting it, and doing the right thing when alerted by it. It is absolutely dependant on peoples faith in it and trust in it, and that's where it falls down. There's so much misinformation being spread about it that it doesn't stand a chance.

It's a complex system to understand - but there are guides out there written in 'layman's' terms. If people want to understand it they can, but they need to have the motivation to do that, and the people spreading misinformation are shouting far louder. You only have to look on Facebook and Twitter, and even on here. Despite several people consistently posting the correct information, it's ignored by a lot of people shouting 'I'm not having an app tracking my movement' (It doesn't), or similar.

And this is where the news about police having access to test and trace data is a problem. It has nothing to do with the app, but people don't believe that. They conflate the two, and it undermines the trust that is vital for the app to have any hope of having any effect on things.

Edited by pip t on Sunday 18th October 12:04

[M4cruiser]

grumbledoak said:

John Locke said:

Anyone who did install it might want to think again now that their personal data is being handed to Old Bill:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8851365/B...

It isn't the data from the Google+Apple API app that is being handed over - that doesn't give them much.

I am quite sure that it would have instantly been the case for the original NHSX app though.

This episode will definitely damage app take-up. Whether it's connected or not, it adds to the distrust.
"No health data is passed on" - Yeah right.

[i4got]

pquinn said:

What was the percentage take up by Germans? It seemed to point that it was useless everywhere and no one cared enough to use it.

South Korea just used other data as a proxy, no worries about data protection.

If you look back though the CV threads on here from the early days there were several common themes.

Germany's response was much better than ours because they were testing more. Now we test a third more than them per day.

South Korea's response is much better than ours because of the test & trace bluetooth app.

We even had a guy on here several times a day telling us tat the Czech Republic had all the answers and we should copy them - he was never that explicit about what they were doing that was better. Now they're on the brink of the medical system collapsing.

My point is that there will always be a perceived problem with what we are doing because we are a nation that loves nothing more than a good moan.

[SS2.]

M4cruiser said:

This episode will definitely damage app take-up. Whether it's connected or not, it adds to the distrust.

That's the crux of it for me.

It's inevitable that greater levels of cynicism, doubt and mistrust will be engendered where authorities are considered to have willfully and knowingly mislead, manipulated and deceived the public.

It's just another nail..

[John Locke]

Road2Ruin said:

John Locke said:

Anyone who did install it might want to think again now that their personal data is being handed to Old Bill:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8851365/B...

You do know that article has nothing to do with the app....don't you?!

The point is, having allowed this, how long will it be before data harvested by the app is passed to the police?

[bitchstewie]

John Locke said:

The point is, having allowed this, how long will it be before data harvested by the app is passed to the police?

What do you expect the police to do with anonymised data?

[John Locke]

bhstewie said:

What do you expect the police to do with anonymised data?

I don't expect it to remain anonymous, in fact I have my doubts about that now. The more information any organisation has about you, the more it will be abused, especially when that organisation is a government controlled by megalomaniacs.

[bitchstewie]

John Locke said:

bhstewie said:

What do you expect the police to do with anonymised data?

I don't expect it to remain anonymous, in fact I have my doubts about that now. The more information any organisation has about you, the more it will be abused, especially when that organisation is a government controlled by megalomaniacs.

If that was their intention do you think they'd release the source code for the app so anyone can examine it and see for themselves exactly what the app is doing and what data it collects and what it does with it?

That's the thing when you make comments such as "in fact I have my doubts about that now".

People can literally look at the source code and prove those doubts wrong.

Which they have.

[anonymous-user]

I only know 1 person who has the app
Or had it - deleted it after this news!

[John Locke]

bhstewie said:

If that was their intention do you think they'd release the source code for the app so anyone can examine it and see for themselves exactly what the app is doing and what data it collects and what it does with it?

That's the thing when you make comments such as "in fact I have my doubts about that now".

People can literally look at the source code and prove those doubts wrong.

Which they have.

Do you also believe that wearing a facemask is good for you?

[bitchstewie]

John Locke said:

bhstewie said:

If that was their intention do you think they'd release the source code for the app so anyone can examine it and see for themselves exactly what the app is doing and what data it collects and what it does with it?

That's the thing when you make comments such as "in fact I have my doubts about that now".

People can literally look at the source code and prove those doubts wrong.

Which they have.

Do you also believe that wearing a facemask is good for you?

What does that have to do with anything?

If you don't work in IT and you don't understand what open source is and what it means so far as visibility of what the NHS app does just say so.

No shame in that there's plenty I don't know about other peoples line of work.

[John Locke]

bhstewie said:

What does that have to do with anything?

If you don't work in IT and you don't understand what open source is and what it means so far as visibility of what the NHS app does just say so.

No shame in that there's plenty I don't know about what other people do.

I don't work in anything any more, but I did sufficient Assembler and machine level (binary) programming in the 1970s to know that it's extremely easy to hide anything which one wishes to.