Would you install and use an NHS Covid tracking app?

[Zirconia]

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Wow. I expect them to do this but rather quietly. Bit like ripping a plaster off then.

[Murph7355]

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

[edh]

Murph7355 said:

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

I'd rather they made the right decision first time. It wasn't hard.

Very few people agreed with the centralised / self reporting model. It wasn't a "game-changer"

[pip t]

edh said:

Murph7355 said:

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

I'd rather they made the right decision first time. It wasn't hard.

Very few people agreed with the centralised / self reporting model. It wasn't a "game-changer"

Flippin finally!

Agreed, they should have listened to people much much earlier regarding switching to this, but at least they haven’t pushed forward to full release of the original.

One interesting thing to note though, is that while our app fundementally didn’t work due to not being able to bypass the privacy protections built into iOS properly, it does seem it was better at judging distances than the Google/ Apple one is.

https://twitter.com/ruskin147/status/1273608610698...

Edited by pip t on Thursday 18th June 14:35

[edh]

Murph7355 said:

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

but don't forget, they have made all the right decisions, at the right time, and at all times have followed "the science"

[Jasandjules]

Murph7355 said:

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

I would rather they weren't a shambles with policies that would appear to have led to the deaths of many thousands of elderly in care homes and many thousands of patients who have not been treated when it was needed whilst costing billions for very little reason.

But maybe that is just me.

[pequod]

pip t said:

edh said:

Murph7355 said:

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

I'd rather they made the right decision first time. It wasn't hard.

Very few people agreed with the centralised / self reporting model. It wasn't a "game-changer"

Flippin finally!

Agreed, they should have listened to people much much earlier regarding switching to this, but at least they haven’t pushed forward to full release of the original.

One interesting thing to note though, is that while our app fundementally didn’t work due to not being able to bypass the privacy protections built into iOS properly, it does seem it was better at judging distances than the Google/ Apple one is.

https://twitter.com/ruskin147/status/1273608610698...

Edited by pip t on Thursday 18th June 14:35

Meanwhile in Japan,

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-japan-urges...

[21TonyK]

There has to be much more to it than the reported problems in the news. You can;t after how ever many weeks say its a problem with the apple os.

[xeny]

pip t said:

One interesting thing to note though, is that while our app fundementally didn’t work due to not being able to bypass the privacy protections built into iOS properly, it does seem it was better at judging distances than the Google/ Apple one is.

This puzzles me - was the British app for British infections doing something in addition to measuring bluetooth signal strength?

[markymarkthree]

Yes, if the gov give me a fancy modern phone. I don't think my DORO does apps.

[Mr E]

xeny said:

This puzzles me - was the British app for British infections doing something in addition to measuring bluetooth signal strength?

If it’s claiming it can determine range more accurately it must be. I’d love to know details.

[Blue62]

I’m not convinced that an app is the best way to go, or at the least not an eggs on one basket solution. I’ve been contributing to the Kings College study and think it may have a greater take up now that it’s being expanded.

My other concern is the woman who seems to have landed the job. Baroness Harding, the same lady who presided over the largest U.K. data breach when CEO of Talk Talk and wife of the Tory MP for Weston, daughter of Lord Harding and studied alongside ‘call me oink’ at Oxford. No doubt appointed on merit.

[Zirconia]

The presser was re writing the narrative again. I thought they had kicked Apple/Google into touch BUT not taken it off the table (handy thing to say at the time in case, well, today).

[Electro1980]

edh said:

Murph7355 said:

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

I'd rather they made the right decision first time. It wasn't hard.

Very few people agreed with the centralised / self reporting model. It wasn't a "game-changer"

It’s not even getting it right the first time, but if they had given up when everyone told them it wouldn’t work, when it was/should have failed QA testing, or even at dev stage given the spectacular failing. It looks very much like they carried on for political reasons.

Interestingly they are now claiming that they have been working on both apps at the same time anyway, but the app that uses standard APIs and should take a few weeks to develop is taking about 6 months...

[AstonZagato]

Electro1980 said:

edh said:

Murph7355 said:

edh said:

Switching to Decentralised Model...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

Is there nothing this govt won't screw up?

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

I'd rather they made the right decision first time. It wasn't hard.

Very few people agreed with the centralised / self reporting model. It wasn't a "game-changer"

It’s not even getting it right the first time, but if they had given up when everyone told them it wouldn’t work, when it was/should have failed QA testing, or even at dev stage given the spectacular failing. It looks very much like they carried on for political reasons.

Interestingly they are now claiming that they have been working on both apps at the same time anyway, but the app that uses standard APIs and should take a few weeks to develop is taking about 6 months...

I may be wrong but thought that, when the decision was taken to build the app, Google and Apple hadn't announced their API so the government's decision to build it themselves was the only decsion they could have taken at that time.

That said, when the API was announced, the decision to stick with their own solution was bizarre.

[edh]

AstonZagato said:

I may be wrong but thought that, when the decision was taken to build the app, Google and Apple hadn't announced their API so the government's decision to build it themselves was the only decsion they could have taken at that time.

That said, when the API was announced, the decision to stick with their own solution was bizarre.

I suspect gov.uk might have known about the Google/Apple initiative a while ahead of any public announcement....

It was a deliberate decision to enable them to pursue centralised data collection & some AI clever tech instead of getting a simple v1.0 out of the door quickly.

Faith in the app will now be slightly above zero...

[Zirconia]

edh said:

AstonZagato said:

I may be wrong but thought that, when the decision was taken to build the app, Google and Apple hadn't announced their API so the government's decision to build it themselves was the only decsion they could have taken at that time.

That said, when the API was announced, the decision to stick with their own solution was bizarre.

I suspect gov.uk might have known about the Google/Apple initiative a while ahead of any public announcement....

It was a deliberate decision to enable them to pursue centralised data collection & some AI clever tech instead of getting a simple v1.0 out of the door quickly.

Faith in the app will now be slightly above zero...

Google and Apple had their out the doors quite quick, April beginning (9th I think was the joint press release)?

Apple dev beta with Covid 29th April (not sure when the public one was out). Though all it would say for this country is that there was no app that could use it. (option is in Privacy/Health in the settings). 20 May that hit global release with 13.5. If I have the timeline correct. 6 May the NHS was added to GitHub?

Really need to see what and who was behind this. The data it collects, gov is allowed to keep for 20 years. There are £1 deals with firms that can go on to make an absolute fortune lurking in the background here and the lax data privacy is a big concern.

Edited by Zirconia on Friday 19th June 06:49

[V1nce Fox]

more cynical minds might now be weighing up whether the initial aim was to reap more data for other purposes, or to launder off funding.

i couldn’t possibly comment.

[RSTurboPaul]

Zirconia said:

Really need to see what and who was behind this. The data it collects, gov is allowed to keep for 20 years. There are £1 deals with firms that can go on to make an absolute fortune lurking in the background here and the lax data privacy is a big concern.

I recall reading the £1 bit previously but not the bit in bold - may I ask where it was mentioned? Was it in the contracts they released??

[Murph7355]

edh said:

Murph7355 said:

Tricky one...

Is admitting a mistake and correcting it "screwing up"?

Admitting a mistake and correcting it with another mistake would count in my book. Whether this counts, time will tell...

Would you rather we had government that refused to admit to mistakes and carried on regardless?

but don't forget, they have made all the right decisions, at the right time, and at all times have followed "the science"

There is rarely any such thing as "the" science in cases like this. And following "the science" of the time/moment is no guarantee of "success" however that is managed.

My view on "an app" is that none will work in this country to any material degree for a virus of this nature with a populous of the nature we have. Comparisons with South Korea and Germany need to compare everything and seldom do.

Still, we are where we are. And I'm very much a cynic.

Have the government made perfect decisions at each step? Far from it (though I suspect the things I think they have done most wrong will differ from your list).

Could any potential government in this country have done any better? Personally I think no. Especially without hindsight. (And yes I think all of this matters - we all get the government we deserve...whether you voted for these or didn't...the choices are down to all of us).

Should we learn from this? Very much so. But I suspect that very little material change will ensue in the long term as people (as in "the people") will not stomach the costs of doing so (financial, societal etc etc).