Would you install and use an NHS Covid tracking app?

Would you install and use an NHS Covid tracking app?

Poll: Would you install and use an NHS Covid tracking app?

Total Members Polled: 875

Yes, I'd install and the app without coercion: 42%
Only if it allowed me freedom of movement: 9%
No, I don't want the app tracking my contacts: 49%
Author
Discussion

cidered77

1,614 posts

196 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
pequod said:
cidered77 said:
yes we have enough capacity at the moment *with everyone at home creating probably the biggest single shock to our economy in living memory*.

and that's with at best 5% of the whole country affected. So how do we get the 70% or so you need for herd immunity?

This will be the only way - if they play the comms right not installing it gets as much backlash as people sunbathing in a park then we might be able to use this to get our lives back.

Even if you have an inbuilt distrust of government and/or likely tend to overplay your unreliance on technology.....
I don't use a 'smart' phone, I believe they are called, so I can't help with this survey whatever my distrust!
you know exactly what they are called -and you're posting on a forum on the internet, so the act isn't particulary convincing.

AstonZagato

Original Poster:

12,652 posts

209 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
pip t said:
Roofless Toothless said:
Our GP surgery was checking email addresses a week or two back. I wondered why.

Although my son and DIL have insisted on doing the supermarket shopping for us, I thought I would try applying for home delivery. I didn't get any further into the system than entering my email address. It promptly chucked me out by saying I wasn't on the NHS at risk list. (True enough, but I am 71 and have health issues.) I have never, ever given Sainsburys my email address.

It seems to me that the NHS has provided the supermarkets not only our email addresses but also access to, if not the details of our medical records, but information derived from them.

I am not altogether happy about that. I am sure life insurance companies for one would be interested in this data. Why should it have escaped the custody of the NHS?
Could also be that a system is in operation where the Sainsburys site automatically queries an NHS database of 'at risk' email addresses, and the NHS returns a yes/no answer, rather than the NHS having given a list to Sainsburys.
I would take that as being an indication that the NHS has NOT given your email to Sainsburys. Your email was not recognised, so not deemed worthy of access.

hyphen

26,262 posts

89 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
fk No.

Even getting put off telling the NHS if I have coronovirus, unless life and death. As they are giving your health data away to private companies.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-g...

XCP

16,876 posts

227 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
How does my phone, which is not 'smart' ( an ancient PAYG Nokia) communicate to anyone my 'contacts'. I don't really understand the basic premise.

Agammemnon

1,628 posts

57 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
I'm anti- big brother but I'm using an allegedly anonymous reporting system as I think the circumstances deserve it.

hyphen

26,262 posts

89 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
XCP said:
How does my phone, which is not 'smart' ( an ancient PAYG Nokia) communicate to anyone my 'contacts'. I don't really understand the basic premise.
With older phones, they will know where you roughly are, by knowing the strength of the signal between your phone and the phone masts in the area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_trackin...

pip t

1,364 posts

166 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
XCP said:
How does my phone, which is not 'smart' ( an ancient PAYG Nokia) communicate to anyone my 'contacts'. I don't really understand the basic premise.
Your Nokia wouldn't be compatible with the system (Which incidentally is one of the flaws with the system - not everyone will have compatible phones).

Pretend for a moment you have a smart phone.

The basic premise is that you download the NHS app. This is the front end of a system developed jointly by Apple & Google.

Your phone generates an encryption key. As does everyones with the app. This contains no information about you, it's just an identifier of the software instance on your phone. (Incidentally this is a rotating key, and changes frequently for security reasons).

Your phone (And everyone else's) transmits that key over a short range bluetooth connection. When it detects someone else's bluetooth transmission, within range, and for a time period over which infection could occur, it logs the other persons encryption key, and remembers this. It can't remember or identify who that person is, just logs the key. Say someone you've met for coffee.

3 days later, that person starts experiencing symptoms. They log this with the app/are tested for it and logs the result with the app. Their phone then tags their encryption key, and all the others it has generated for the past 10 days when they could have been asymptomatically infectious, and uploads these to a server. Just the keys, no other identifying information.

Meanwhile, everyone's phone periodically downloads the list of 'infectious' keys from the server. When your phone downloads the list, it compares it to all the key's it's logged as you've gone about your daily business. In this case, it finds that one of the keys on the infectious list, matches one that it's logged from when you had coffee with that person, and alerts you that you could potentially have been infected by them.

That's pretty much how it works.....apologies if I haven't explained it very clearly, it's a bit complexicated!

One thing to note is when it refers to 'contacts,' it's not talking about your contact list on your phone. It's people you've had contact with.

hyphen said:
With older phones, they will know where you roughly are, by knowing the strength of the signal between your phone and the phone masts in the area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_trackin...
This is true, but it has nothing to do with this system. At no point does it use geographical location data, whether via GPS or GSM triangulation. It purely detects your proximity to others using bluetooth.

Edited by pip t on Sunday 12th April 22:51

AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
I've no idea why people are so resistant to the general ideas of being accountable for their movements at this sort of time.

Until we have mass testing and vaccination this would actually let society at least start to re-open.

I guess it's the same people who have been successfully re-introducing mumps.

Yeah. That'll tell the man, yeah.

XCP

16,876 posts

227 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
pip t said:
This is true, but it has nothing to do with this system. At no point does it use geographical location data, whether via GPS or GSM triangulation. It purely detects your proximity to others using bluetooth.

Edited by pip t on Sunday 12th April 22:51
Thanks but I think it's beyond me. Probably us old timers are the ones most at risk with the least technical know how.

pip t

1,364 posts

166 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
XCP said:
pip t said:
This is true, but it has nothing to do with this system. At no point does it use geographical location data, whether via GPS or GSM triangulation. It purely detects your proximity to others using bluetooth.

Edited by pip t on Sunday 12th April 22:51
Thanks but I think it's beyond me. Probably us old timers are the ones most at risk with the least technical know how.
No worries!

Doesn't really make you more at risk - the app won't stop anyone catching it directly. It's really just a 'you may possibly have contracted it but not realise yet, so please self isolate just in case' early warning, with the intent of minimising asymptomatic transmission.


Fundoreen

4,180 posts

82 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
If you had been told you had the virus I would think you would self isolate.
If you decided to ignore that and go romping in the fens and spinneys of surrey you would probably leave the phone behind if the app was forced on you.
Anyone carrying their phone risks being beaten to death by someone overreacting that was walking on the other side of the road.
Bojo can shove his latest chinese idea up his arse with the rest of his brilliant efforts.

XCP

16,876 posts

227 months

Sunday 12th April 2020
quotequote all
would the person on the other side of the road know you had the virus then?
Why do you think they would be so hostile?

pip t

1,364 posts

166 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
If you had been told you had the virus I would think you would self isolate.
If you decided to ignore that and go romping in the fens and spinneys of surrey you would probably leave the phone behind if the app was forced on you.
Anyone carrying their phone risks being beaten to death by someone overreacting that was walking on the other side of the road.
Bojo can shove his latest chinese idea up his arse with the rest of his brilliant efforts.
I kind of struggled to make sense of any of that, but yes, one of the whole myriad of problems with it is that people could easily just not carry their phones. Nobody is suggesting it's a problem free solution.

XCP said:
would the person on the other side of the road know you had the virus then?
Why do you think they would be so hostile?
No they wouldn't. They system is anonymous. You'd know that you'd at some point come into contact with an infectious person, but you wouldn't know who that person was.
On the hostility.....as with the rest of the content of that post.....not a clue hehe

Badgerboy

1,783 posts

191 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
If you had been told you had the virus I would think you would self isolate.
If you decided to ignore that and go romping in the fens and spinneys of surrey you would probably leave the phone behind if the app was forced on you.
Anyone carrying their phone risks being beaten to death by someone overreacting that was walking on the other side of the road.
Bojo can shove his latest chinese idea up his arse with the rest of his brilliant efforts.
Stop and think. Please.

You clearly don't have an understanding on how the platform works, so please go and read one of the plentiful articles that can distil it into something you can understand.

You response clearly shows a lack of understanding.

xjay1337

15,966 posts

117 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
Would not do it.


mygoldfishbowl

3,691 posts

142 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
If this app relies on people being tested for the virus then it's pretty much gonna be useless, isn't it?

skyrover

12,668 posts

203 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
Not a chance

Zirconia

36,010 posts

283 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
Having read an article suggesting some usual suspects are up to some old tricks with no transparency and data issue (could be resolved being open about it), withdrawing from the yes vote. Unable to change it. Requires total transparency and ways and means from gov.com on all privacy and data.

BoloH4wes

92 posts

89 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
If you had been told you had the virus I would think you would self isolate.
If you decided to ignore that and go romping in the fens and spinneys of surrey you would probably leave the phone behind if the app was forced on you.
Anyone carrying their phone risks being beaten to death by someone overreacting that was walking on the other side of the road.
Bojo can shove his latest chinese idea up his arse with the rest of his brilliant efforts.
Are you mental?

Roofless Toothless

5,612 posts

131 months

Monday 13th April 2020
quotequote all
AstonZagato said:
I would take that as being an indication that the NHS has NOT given your email to Sainsburys. Your email was not recognised, so not deemed worthy of access.
Well, I did say 'our' email addresses, not 'my'.

As far as the actual thread topic is concerned, I do not own a smartphone, so it is all pretty academic to me. I have been deaf for over 35 years, and rely on two hearing aids. I can't use the things unless on loudspeaker, so I have never bothered. I know many people feel as attached to these phones as they are to their right arms, but I just don't have a smartphone shaped gap in my life to fill, and I don't intend ever getting one.