The NHS is in the process of rolling out an app that will trace who people have been in contact with, and alert them of the need to self-isolate if they have been in proximity to someone infected with coronavirus.
NHSX, the NHS England innovation unit, is leading the project, and development of the app is reportedly being carried out by Pivotal, a subsidiary of American software giant VMware.
The team, from Oxford University, has been developing the algorithm since mid-January and was inspired by the Chinese tracking app that designates people a red or green riskiness code determining whether they should self-isolate.
An NHSX spokesperson said: “NHSX is looking at whether app-based solutions might be helpful in tracking and managing coronavirus, and we have assembled expertise from inside and outside the organisation to do this as rapidly as possible.”
How will the contact-tracing app work?
Users will be encouraged to enter into the app whether they have experienced symptoms (or been given a diagnosis) of coronavirus. The app will then trace, using bluetooth, other people they have been in close contact with over the past seven days and alert those people of the need to self-isolate. A record of those contacts will be stored on the device.
When will it launch?
A source close to the project told NS Tech last week that the app could be launched in a matter of weeks. But some reports suggest that it will now be released either just before or just after lockdown is lifted. The government is yet to announce when the current social distancing measures will be relaxed.
Would it be voluntary?
Early reports are suggesting that the app would be voluntary to download. However, it will only be effective at tracking and curbing the spread of coronavirus if at least 60 per cent of the population download it.
Will it be successful?
Supporters of the app maintain that it will be a useful way to track people who might be infected with coronavirus. Unlike other diseases like Sars and flu, people infected with coronavirus can be asymptomatic for a number of days before expressing symptoms, meaning they can come into contact with a number of people before feeling sick. Research has shown that people with symptoms are far more contagious, but 80 per cent of new cases are spread by people with less severe symptoms for this exact reason.
However, not everyone is convinced of the merits of tracking people at this stage of the pandemic. The UK’s chief medical officer Sir Patrick Vallance told a press conference in mid-March that the most useful period of time for location tracking had already passed, saying the concept “would have been a good idea in January”.
However, according to a new analysis by the scientists at the University of Oxford behind the app, “digital herd protection” is likely to be essential to loosening lockdown restrictions without seeing a huge second peak of infections. “We see it as the only alternative to … applying isolation to the whole population,” said professor David Bonsall, senior researcher at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine and a clinician, who co-led the project.
Will it infringe on my privacy?
Given its planned use of bluetooth data and individualised tracking, the app has understandably been met with circumspection from privacy advocates.
A number of technology and privacy experts published an open letter to the CEO of NHSX and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care imploring NHSX to follow best ethical practice in developing the app.
The letter reads that “mobile phone data from O2, EE and BT is already being used to understand the movement of people; information about this is coming to light in a piecemeal and ad hoc way and it is unclear what this data is and who has access to it. Part 3, section 61A of the Investigatory Powers Act enables people with symptoms or a diagnosis of Coronavirus to be tracked without notice, and it is unclear if the UK government is following the practices developed during the Ebola crisis.
The section relating to the Investigatory Powers Act is particularly worrying – by identifying yourself as a potential carrier of Covid-19 via the NHS app, does this mean you can legally be tracked without notice?
MedConfidential, an organisation that campaigns for confidentiality in healthcare, objects to the technological decisions underlying the app’s mechanism. “The NHSX ‘tracking app’ tracks and stores the permanent, unchangeable, Bluetooth machine address embedded in each mobile phone, smart watch, wireless headphones, tablet, or laptop,” the group writes in a document. “While measuring social distancing may be a temporary requirement, these identifiers persist in tracking the owner for the lifetime of the physical device. That they are being used is an implementation choice by the team building the app.
“To be absolutely clear, instead of taking an equally viable approach which would use completely random temporary identifiers broadcast by the phone, permanent trackable identifiers are the choice the Oxford University-led team has decided to make.”
The data accessed by the app will reportedly not be sent to a central body for processing, which its creators hope might ease some qualms around downloading the app in the general populace.
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