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
Discussion
AstonZagato said:
No worried. I'm as interested in people's reasons why they wouldn't. (I would, as I said in the first post).
Some looks to me like tin-foil hattery. Some sensible concerns. Some luddites. Some practical concerns. Some troglodytes.
It also amuses me that most smart phone users happily give up far more data to the software houses and shopping apps they use than they'd ever give up to the NHS but remain adamant that this is an invasion of privacy.
I remember when everyone was freaking out about Labours plans for ID cards and bipmetric passports. For years later we were tagging all of their friends for photo recognition and handing over their phonebook to facebook.Some looks to me like tin-foil hattery. Some sensible concerns. Some luddites. Some practical concerns. Some troglodytes.
It also amuses me that most smart phone users happily give up far more data to the software houses and shopping apps they use than they'd ever give up to the NHS but remain adamant that this is an invasion of privacy.
People are mostly dumb animals at the end of the day. We magnify some threats and trivialise others all the time, even on the occasions when we do know better.
wiggy001 said:
There are some crazy people on this thread who should probably speak to their GP tomorrow.
Oh, did you have anybody particularly in mind?If by any chance your 'crazy people' includes me, you will be relieved to know that I'm already scheduled to see my doctor later this week; to continue the programme of cancer treatment; so worry not.
Roofless Toothless said:
Thanks for your interest Pip, and I appreciate this advice.
The thing is, though, I am retired and simply don't get out that much nowadays. A bout with cancer a few years back has left me appreciating a simple, home based life. Having a continuously high level of connectivity to the Internet is of no interest to me. I have a PC and an iPad at home and use them a lot. Nothing ever comes along that means I would need facilities like this on the occasions that I am out. I can appreciate that people who are younger, still working and get about more would find all that a smartphone can offer is invaluable, and I can see that they are enormously clever devices, but they are not for me.
It's like I said previously, there's just no gap in my life that a smartphone would fill.
A couple of birthdays ago I mentioned to my family that I am starting to get a little concerned on the few occasions I am out driving on my own that I might need a phone if I should get in trouble. My son bought me a simple phone, on a PAYG card that does little more than make a call. I think I have turned it on three times since, just to call my home number and see if it works.
One or two posts on this thread, from I assume younger contributors, seem to indicate that they find it strange that other people might have different circumstances and needs from themselves. Personally, I find the sight of people wandering about with their phones poised in front of their faces all the time equally odd, but we all live our lives the way we want to.
Your post is how I feel although I admit to carrying mine, switched on, more than you but seldom call or receive calls. I see the thing as a useful aid if and when needed not as an essential connection to all and sundry for live updates on social media or to post pictures of places I am at, instantly, for some gratification or approval.The thing is, though, I am retired and simply don't get out that much nowadays. A bout with cancer a few years back has left me appreciating a simple, home based life. Having a continuously high level of connectivity to the Internet is of no interest to me. I have a PC and an iPad at home and use them a lot. Nothing ever comes along that means I would need facilities like this on the occasions that I am out. I can appreciate that people who are younger, still working and get about more would find all that a smartphone can offer is invaluable, and I can see that they are enormously clever devices, but they are not for me.
It's like I said previously, there's just no gap in my life that a smartphone would fill.
A couple of birthdays ago I mentioned to my family that I am starting to get a little concerned on the few occasions I am out driving on my own that I might need a phone if I should get in trouble. My son bought me a simple phone, on a PAYG card that does little more than make a call. I think I have turned it on three times since, just to call my home number and see if it works.
One or two posts on this thread, from I assume younger contributors, seem to indicate that they find it strange that other people might have different circumstances and needs from themselves. Personally, I find the sight of people wandering about with their phones poised in front of their faces all the time equally odd, but we all live our lives the way we want to.
I do however, understand where this App is applicable but for my generation, even if we managed to download it, remember to carry the phone, understand the circumstances when the 'I've got it' message needs to be sent, and react appropriately when we received an amber or red warning, it's far too much to compute let alone most of us have only just mastered texting!
Best left to the youngsters who need to get back to school/work asap. We are quite content shuffling around the local area raising our voices to communicate, because we're deaf you know, and at 2 metre distance, one has to SHOUT! Eh?
Zirconia said:
edh said:
Looks like quite an elegant concept to me. Google & Facebook (in particular) + Telcos, are already collecting much more information about you anyway.
People might be surprised if they had the T+C laid out in simple terms for that waze app or instagram, facebook of course.However there's a fundamental difference between private companies collecting your data and the state doing it. Private companies can target advertising at you. The state can lock you up.
(I realise that's extreme, I realise this means I now must don my finest tin foil chapeau. I don't seriously entertain the idea that in our largely liberal democracy the government is going to suddenly start Chinese levels of authoritarian data surveillance. But the fact remains, there's a difference there and I can see why people would be concerned about state tracking apps.)
Roofless Toothless said:
Thanks for your interest Pip, and I appreciate this advice.
The thing is, though, I am retired and simply don't get out that much nowadays. A bout with cancer a few years back has left me appreciating a simple, home based life. Having a continuously high level of connectivity to the Internet is of no interest to me. I have a PC and an iPad at home and use them a lot. Nothing ever comes along that means I would need facilities like this on the occasions that I am out. I can appreciate that people who are younger, still working and get about more would find all that a smartphone can offer is invaluable, and I can see that they are enormously clever devices, but they are not for me.
It's like I said previously, there's just no gap in my life that a smartphone would fill.
A couple of birthdays ago I mentioned to my family that I am starting to get a little concerned on the few occasions I am out driving on my own that I might need a phone if I should get in trouble. My son bought me a simple phone, on a PAYG card that does little more than make a call. I think I have turned it on three times since, just to call my home number and see if it works.
One or two posts on this thread, from I assume younger contributors, seem to indicate that they find it strange that other people might have different circumstances and needs from themselves. Personally, I find the sight of people wandering about with their phones poised in front of their faces all the time equally odd, but we all live our lives the way we want to.
No problem! Smart phones ain't for everyone, I totally get that!The thing is, though, I am retired and simply don't get out that much nowadays. A bout with cancer a few years back has left me appreciating a simple, home based life. Having a continuously high level of connectivity to the Internet is of no interest to me. I have a PC and an iPad at home and use them a lot. Nothing ever comes along that means I would need facilities like this on the occasions that I am out. I can appreciate that people who are younger, still working and get about more would find all that a smartphone can offer is invaluable, and I can see that they are enormously clever devices, but they are not for me.
It's like I said previously, there's just no gap in my life that a smartphone would fill.
A couple of birthdays ago I mentioned to my family that I am starting to get a little concerned on the few occasions I am out driving on my own that I might need a phone if I should get in trouble. My son bought me a simple phone, on a PAYG card that does little more than make a call. I think I have turned it on three times since, just to call my home number and see if it works.
One or two posts on this thread, from I assume younger contributors, seem to indicate that they find it strange that other people might have different circumstances and needs from themselves. Personally, I find the sight of people wandering about with their phones poised in front of their faces all the time equally odd, but we all live our lives the way we want to.
Jasey_ said:
Sway said:
voyds9 said:
Not only wouldn't I install it I have already turned my phone off and it sits idly on my desk and hasn't moved in the last 3 weeks.
I already don't trust them not to track it.
What difference does it make if they do? What on earth do you think they could possibly do with that info to cause you 'harm' in any way? I already don't trust them not to track it.
I have already opted out of the central NHS database they introduced a few years ago for similar reasons, they are now talking about selling this data to google/apple
pip t said:
I think the 10 minutes came from a study showing the likelihood of transmission. If you just have a 'glancing blow' with an infected person the likelihood of transmission remains relatively low. A sustained amount of time dramatically increased the likelihood of transmission.
In the end its all a balancing act. Yes, logging every single contact regardless of time would increase the amount of transmission points notified. It would also increase false positives, etc etc. Requiring a set duration reduces the likelihood of false alarms, but, yes, also reduces the potential real alarms. You have to have a balance somewhere to keep the system practical and effective.
It's another case of don't the perfection be the enemy of the good.
In this case, I suspect that the level of perfection required to make it in any way useful will be impossible. If you set the threshold for alerting to "everyone I've been close to" you'll be overwhelmed in short order by false positives. If you set the threshold to "someone I've been near for 10 minutes" then you mist most of the opportunities for infection. And, lets face it, most people I have 10 minute conversations with I know already: they're either my friends or I work with them, and I will know if they have it. In the end its all a balancing act. Yes, logging every single contact regardless of time would increase the amount of transmission points notified. It would also increase false positives, etc etc. Requiring a set duration reduces the likelihood of false alarms, but, yes, also reduces the potential real alarms. You have to have a balance somewhere to keep the system practical and effective.
It's another case of don't the perfection be the enemy of the good.
IMO the use case may be rather different - at an aggregate level, if you can track where hot spots of infections are, then you can see patterns. E.g. if you see that loads of infected people have been in (for example) Leeds, you can lock it down in a more targeted fashion.
rxe said:
In this case, I suspect that the level of perfection required to make it in any way useful will be impossible. If you set the threshold for alerting to "everyone I've been close to" you'll be overwhelmed in short order by false positives. If you set the threshold to "someone I've been near for 10 minutes" then you mist most of the opportunities for infection. And, lets face it, most people I have 10 minute conversations with I know already: they're either my friends or I work with them, and I will know if they have it.
IMO the use case may be rather different - at an aggregate level, if you can track where hot spots of infections are, then you can see patterns. E.g. if you see that loads of infected people have been in (for example) Leeds, you can lock it down in a more targeted fashion.
My bolding. You'll only know if they have it if they're showing symptoms. They may have caught it 2 days ago, and start experiencing symptoms in 3 days time. They'll have been infectious while you were sitting drinking coffee with them. One of the things the app will do is notify people who were close to them in the period before they were symptomatic. By doing this, it may help reduce pre-symptomatic spread, assuming everyone cooperates when notified.IMO the use case may be rather different - at an aggregate level, if you can track where hot spots of infections are, then you can see patterns. E.g. if you see that loads of infected people have been in (for example) Leeds, you can lock it down in a more targeted fashion.
The problems with how it manages exposure and duration contacts are very good points, and here it'll be a case of arriving at a sensible balance of missed transmissions and reducing false alerts.
Your final point of a different use case - yes, potentially, but that would require some element of geographic tracking, which may make less people install it. In some ways this use case is already covered by the existing 'Zoe' symptom tracker app. That has an element of geographic tracking by taking the first three digits of your postcode. It seems to have reasonable uptake, with 2.3m contributing currently - but this is far below the required number of people using the proposed contact tracker for it to have beneficial effects.
I was involved with an NHS project a while back which had the potential to make life easier for potentially millions of people with multiple chronic conditions, and also save the taxpayer a huge sum into the bargain.
Time after time, the project board got frustrated over permissions to use data. At the point I moved on to a different role after about 18 months, things had moved no further forward, and I'm not sure that they have now.
The data access that would've been required was less intrusive than the permissions people give away to the likes of Facebook without giving it a second thought, but there are just far too many tinfoil hat wearers around who would've done everything they could to have prevented things ever going live, even if it meant cutting their own noses off to spite their faces.
Time after time, the project board got frustrated over permissions to use data. At the point I moved on to a different role after about 18 months, things had moved no further forward, and I'm not sure that they have now.
The data access that would've been required was less intrusive than the permissions people give away to the likes of Facebook without giving it a second thought, but there are just far too many tinfoil hat wearers around who would've done everything they could to have prevented things ever going live, even if it meant cutting their own noses off to spite their faces.
Using Bluetooth signal seems like a bit of a silly idea. don't understand how that's ever going to be reliable.
I have nothing against using an app for this, but even in normal circumstances the only times I go out as such are running and cycling, I avoid shops like the plague and get everything online. I have never taken a phone with me when running and have no intention of starting, and when I cycling I have the Bluetooth on my phone turned off as it interferes with my power meter. So the app wouldn't be able to generate any useful info. All makes it seem kind of pointless. Are they going to start taking away civil liberties from people that don't have a phone running the app?
I have nothing against using an app for this, but even in normal circumstances the only times I go out as such are running and cycling, I avoid shops like the plague and get everything online. I have never taken a phone with me when running and have no intention of starting, and when I cycling I have the Bluetooth on my phone turned off as it interferes with my power meter. So the app wouldn't be able to generate any useful info. All makes it seem kind of pointless. Are they going to start taking away civil liberties from people that don't have a phone running the app?
Yes absolutely because i can't think of a better way to get back to normal than track, trace, test and isolate once we're back down to a manageable number of cases. A small aspect of my privacy vs. my freedom due to rolling lock downs, my parents lives and my childrens economic future. Fair trade.
fblm said:
Yes absolutely because i can't think of a better way to get back to normal than track, trace, test and isolate once we're back down to a manageable number of cases. A small aspect of my privacy vs. my freedom due to rolling lock downs, my parents lives and my childrens economic future. Fair trade.
Given that all it's doing it tracking your phone's position relative to other phones, not your absolute position, it's not going to be a significant privacy issue. I'd sooner have this than an ID card, for example.We don't need 100% compliance, and cyclists / runners are not likely to be big spreaders or to catch this when out - unless they pop in to the pub (remember them?) or visit your house half way through their journey.
fblm said:
lufbramatt said:
Using Bluetooth signal seems like a bit of a silly idea. don't understand how that's ever going to be reliable.
As i understand it bluetooth simply confirms your immediate proximity to someone else closer than gps/wifi alone.GPS would also harm the privacy credentials quite significantly as it would provide a geographic location as well as a proximity.
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hstewie said:
Twas always my concern, remains a no for me at the moment as I cannot trust the government. Middle ground is somewhere though.hstewie said:carinaman said:
I don't routinely carry a mobile phone. It gets more use as an alarm clock than as a phone or device for SMS text messages.
It's also pre-App. It's not an iPhone, Android or Windows phone.
Welcome to the growing list of Luddites! It's also pre-App. It's not an iPhone, Android or Windows phone.
As with yours, my phone is pre-App although I do take it with me when out in the car (essential use only at the moment, although the Govt doesn't specify which one you must use!) and do occasionally make calls and send a txt.
The youngsters on here are mortified we haven't joined the 21st century, apparently.
I probably wouldn't use it, or maybe I would but turn phone off at work, the reason being I work in a area where mobile phones are not allowed in the office for security reasons, as such everyone leaves their phones in small lockers outside the office door, the result is I would estimate 50 phones all within 2 metres of each other for long periods of time which would all be tracking to the same point.
I can imagine that would cause some false readings for the app.
I can imagine that would cause some false readings for the app.
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