true, they could only start building test apps on the 29th, the (preliminary) documentation (specification & framework) was made available no more than a week after the initial announcement though.First dev seed (with limited documentation) was April 29th. 8 days ago.
true, they could only start building test apps on the 29th, the (preliminary) documentation (specification & framework) was made available no more than a week after the initial announcement though.
My point is (I'm an aged dev) I can understand why if your work was 80% completed, and a curveball arrived early April that was going to need you to pivot, promising initial release mid-May and more enhancements over months, why you'd continue with your work (and review the new options in parallel).
Which I think is what is happening.
What bugs me is why not just say this? Rather than the 'UK knows best' answer given which sets all these hares running.
First announced 4th April.
First dev seed (with limited documentation) was April 29th. 8 days ago...
I understand what you're saying about the development timeline, but the National Cyber Security Centre don't make any reference to the delayed availability of the Google/Apple API as a reason for the design choices that were made.
They say that the decentralised tracking model was considered, but was explicitly rejected in favour of a centralised system. They decided to go with the option with greater privacy risks to in order to give the NHS more information to act directly on the information provided by users:
"What’s discussed much less is the public health benefits of the different models. There are lots of differences, but given the epidemiological model the NHS is using to manage the coronavirus spread in the UK, the fully decentralised model just doesn’t seem to work."
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/security-behind-nhs-contact-tracing-app
They say that the decentralised tracking model was considered, but was explicitly rejected in favour of a centralised system.
My understanding was the centralised data store (the app) and the distributed contact detection/notification mechanism (the API) are separate AFAIK. The only restriction Apple/Google put on your app is you can't access GPS. Could be wrong.
i.e. you can switch to the Apple/Google APIs, but still have your central data.
I'm with you on that Jamze, you can still use a centralised model on top of the Google/Apple API.
Access to the technology will be granted only to public health authorities. Their apps must meet specific criteria around privacy, security, and data control. The public health authority app will be able to access a list of beacons provided by users confirmed as positive for COVID-19 who have consented to sharing them. The system was also designed so that Apple and Google do not have access to information related to any specific individual.
COVID19-STATIC.CDN-APPLE.COM @Jamze @torsoinalake that's not my understanding of it. The NHS app wants to collect more information than simply a list of randomised beacon codes. The A/G API simply doesn't provide any more information. Therefore the NHS app can't use the API - which in turn means the apps can't function in the background, etc. (In fact it's worse than that because for countries following the A/G API, once the iOS/Android update has dropped, users won't even have to download an app for the system to work)
The fact that the information is passed to e.g. a NHS server isn't what makes the distinction between centralised/decentralised model. (There is provision for that in the API as you have found). It's that the warning triggers for interactions will be processed locally on everyone's own phone (decentralised - they can CHOOSE to inform the NHS if they have a positive contact) vs some fancy pants algorithm on a server and then the warnings are pushed to peoples' phones (centralised - the NHS will inform THEM).
So I test mobile app for security and privacy issues. I also have a client who is one of the leading geospatial data analytics companies. I'll be downloading and using the app. I'll probably have a poke around it out of professional curiosity, but nothing I have heard or read convinces me that installing it is a bad idea.
Seriously if you are that worried about your privacy then you shouldn't own a smart phone in the first place.
nothing I have heard or read convinces me that installing it is a bad idea.
As you are a privacy tester, what's your thought on them not providing a Data Protection Impact Assessment?
@zilog, we won't know for sure unless the NHS decides to publish their API too.
It's not just the security and privacy of the app though. It's the security and privacy of the server and the data with an associated unique persistent ID that is stored forever, for current and future issues, and for future research, that I have an issue with.
If there was a law forcing all data to be automatically removed after 28 days, it'd get many more signups. if it was decentralised with no unique ID it would get even more signups still.
Whilst the data could be of very useful academic research into epidemiology, that is not the job of NHS. They are there to provide health services now. Leave it up to the academics to have an app that collects data for future research. Then let the academics sway future ministers views, not data profiling companies, in order to improve future national health provisions.
My point is (I’m an aged dev) I can understand why if your work was 80% completed, and a curveball arrived early April that was going to need you to pivot, promising initial release mid-May and more enhancements over months, why you’d continue with your work (and review the new options in parallel).
Which I think is what is happening.
What bugs me is why not just say this? Rather than the ‘UK knows best’ answer given which sets all these hares running.
I hadn't thought about the timelines before - and yes this does sound likely.
Something else which I don't understand... Why did they think that they would be able to work around the background app issue? They must have realised early on in the development that this was a problem. If I was developing an app of this importance then I would have gone to Apple and Google asking what my options were. I wouldn't try to 'work around' the problems on my own. I'd love to know what has actually happened. If it is the case that the developers haven't asked Apple/Google for advice then that's either massive hubris or massive incompetance. If they have asked then why not say so, and say what that advice was?
Something else which I don’t understand… Why did they think that they would be able to work around the background app issue? They must have realised early on in the development that this was a problem. If I was developing an app of this importance then I would have gone to Apple and Google asking what my options were. I wouldn’t try to ‘work around’ the problems on my own. I’d love to know what has actually happened. If it is the case that the developers haven’t asked Apple/Google for advice then that’s either massive hubris or massive incompetance. If they have asked then why not say so, and say what that advice was?
Didn't have much choice (until April). Looked at what China and others were doing I guess, they have said they've been working with Apple and Google. Perhaps all these countries struggling to get this working reliably is what prompted the phone manufacturers to step in?
@Jamze @torsoinalake that’s not my understanding of it. The NHS app wants to collect more information than simply a list of randomised beacon codes. The A/G API simply doesn’t provide any more information. Therefore the NHS app can’t use the API – which in turn means the apps can’t function in the background, etc. (In fact it’s worse than that because for countries following the A/G API, once the iOS/Android update has dropped, users won’t even have to download an app for the system to work)
The fact that the information is passed to e.g. a NHS server isn’t what makes the distinction between centralised/decentralised model. (There is provision for that in the API as you have found). It’s that the warning triggers for interactions will be processed locally on everyone’s own phone (decentralised – they can CHOOSE to inform the NHS if they have a positive contact) vs some fancy pants algorithm on a server and then the warnings are pushed to peoples’ phones (centralised – the NHS will inform THEM).
My understanding is the A/G proposal isn't stand alone. You need a health service app too. They've said one health service will be nominated per country (that might be relaxed in the States).
Correct, the centralised design is 2 bits - NHS do contact matching/notification centrally plus store 'useful' info for later analysis. If you moved to A/G you drop the former, but in theory could keep the latter.
From what I've read, the app can determine from A/G when you've possible been exposed (plus it will know when you say you have symptoms). Both these events can trigger info to be stored centrally for analysis. First part of postcode, date/time etc.
It’s not just the security and privacy of the app though. It’s the security and privacy of the server and the data with an associated unique persistent ID that is stored forever, for current and future issues, and for future research, that I have an issue with.
So, once again, if you contract C19 and are called by a manual contact tracing team to identify your recent close contacts will you comply?
I don’t have anything to hide
Care to stick your address up on here and I’ll pop round to install a couple of webcams in your bedroom?
Everyone has something to hide, just because you’re not up to nefarious business doesn’t mean you don’t need a degree of privacy.
This is the second time that what i said, has been quoted, both times ignoring the but afterwards...
I don't have anything to hide, but my privacy is important to me
As in, I am not a criminal, fraudster or shady character, but i still don't want my personal data abused.
You would have a much better discussion, if people read what was posted, rather than reading what they think people are saying through their own prejudices or filters. 🙂
My concerns are about how long and how this data is stored, how when using it with other datasets, it coud be used to identify me. No one knows how long this app will need to be in place for, and how long after a form of "normal" returns it will still be tracing you.
read this if you wonder why having your location tracked is not a problem. (i know the app doesnt use location services, this is a point about how data collected for one purpose is used for another)
As i said in my original post, If the government want people to use it, they have to explain why these concerns are not valid. People saying that you are not a team player, or that this is a massive cummings conspiracy dont help either way, they just polarise the argument.
Peace.
Question: how deep/removed does the tracing process go (either manual or app)?
If I report symptoms, I lost all the folk I've been in contact with over the past 72(?) hours. Are those folk also asked to do the same - and how many iterations are there of this?
Well, the code's been published today.
https://twitter.com/reincubate/status/1258451404705890306
https://twitter.com/jamiebishop123/status/1258469699567976448
https://reincubate.com/blog/staying-alive-covid-19-background-tracing/
Question: how deep/removed does the tracing process go (either manual or app)?
If I report symptoms, I lost all the folk I’ve been in contact with over the past 72(?) hours. Are those folk also asked to do the same – and how many iterations are there of this?
I assume it's down to the NHS and their tracers, and what's manageable. I read somewhere the app (A/G implementation) supports two levels.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt5801/jtselect/jtrights/343/343.pdf
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has reservations
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1258337832575422466?s=20
BBC says:
"In a related development, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced that Baroness Dido Harding will head up the wider test, track and trace programme.
"The appointment has surprised some given that when she was chief executive of TalkTalk, the internet provider suffered a major data breach and failed to properly notify affected customers"
The controversy generated by the UK choosing not to use the A/G approach was pretty predictable, so the fact that they decided to do that anyway, and are now investigating the impact of switching horses may give some insight into how well this project is being managed.
It could be as simple as timing and making use of what you’ve already developed.
The Apple/Google stuff is in Beta. Yes, they plan to release it soon, but who knows how long it will take. Plus you then need to retest your app and implementation before you launch.
The NHS app is in beta, on the IoW at the moment, and as I and others have pointed out, the government has a long and unhappy history of making a complete cluster**** of any IT project, I can’t imagine this would be any different, plus I have faith in Apple and their obsession with privacy, Google not so much, but their run-in with France and the EU has tightened their focus considerably, so as soon as the app is available I’ll happily install it.
So, once again, if you contract C19 and are called by a manual contact tracing team to identify your recent close contacts will you comply?
Very much this.
If you contract CV it's very useful to the guys trying to beat CV to know where you've been. If 100 people visiting the same supermarket ended up with CV maybe they need to go an see what's going on - maybe the cleaner's rubbish, maybe it's a design flaw. (If you don't like that example make up your own example of how a respiratory disease could still involve focus of infections.) Equally we know very little about transmission and they could rule out some activities as being highly unlikely to spread CV. The conclusions they could draw are endless.
If everyone refused to say where they'd been in the Broad Street cholera epidemic at the very beginning of epidemiology John Snow would never have spotted the water pump.
Sharing my movements would be a lot more productive than banging a few pans outside our doors on a Thursday night and I'm more than happy to do it for the public good. If I want to do something nefarious, clearly I'll be concealing it from the contact tracer.
So I'm willing to share my movements *in detail* with a human contact tracer. Given that I'm equally happy to share my movements using my mobile phone as well. In fact, in phone tracking terms, for myself, I'd be willing to go *way* beyond what's actually been proposed. I'm happy for them to track me with my GPS to dramatically speed up identifying focus of infections. (Christ, I'm so careless about my privacy I even give them my blood! With my actual DNA in it!)
If everyone refused to say where they’d been in the Broad Street cholera epidemic at the very beginning of epidemiology John Snow would never have spotted the water pump.
Dr Snow's analysis was based on the locations of the deceased, not on interviews with the living.
Dr Snow’s analysis was based on the locations of the deceased, not on interviews with the living.
So what?
So people's refusal or otherwise to say where they'd been was entirely irrelevant to him forming his hypothesis.
.
Today's news is that the NHS is preparing to switch track to the Apple/Google app. Turns out that that the technology companies might be better at the technology after all.
Turns out that that the technology companies might be better at the technology after all.
Not the point for me. And the last major iOS update on the wife's iPhone was full of bugs, so no, they're not always better. And a few techie coder mates are pretty impressed with what Pivotal/VMware has managed to do.
But yeah, makes total sense to switch to the functionality provided by the phone OS if it's reliable. Will be a while though until that's fully released.
Just need to sort the legislation/data protection side now. I noticed yesterday medical records (not anonymised obviously) held by the NHS is already default opt-in for use for research and planning.
Don't know if the UK app differs much from the one they are asking us to use here in Aus, but apparently it's very flaky on Apple phones, to the point of it being virtually useless.
Don’t know if the UK app differs much from the one they are asking us to use here in Aus, but apparently it’s very flaky on Apple phones, to the point of it being virtually useless.
https://twitter.com/tim/status/1258649318648614912?s=21
I'm not so fussed on the privacy side given how much Google, Facebook and even the government know about me. Though I trust the latter less with my data, but not that they have some secret agenda, just their incompetence.
My main concern is the accuracy. As said, distance measuring on BT seems very flakey. I could be told I should lock down fully for couple of weeks because signal suggested I was close enough for long enough to someone infected when I wasn't, or someone behind a wall is infected. Could be my neighbour. Go to the supermarket, keeping as distant as possible, maybe wearing a face mask, but one person has the virus and everyone there is flagged. Even those in the next aisle to the infected person.
Don’t know if the UK app differs much from the one they are asking us to use here in Aus, but apparently it’s very flaky on Apple phones, to the point of it being virtually useless.
They seem to have tried their hardest, but I'm pretty confident they'll move to Apple/Google when they can.
'The NHS COVID-19 app appears to work correctly when running in the background on iOS devices, unlike the Australian COVIDSafe app'
https://reincubate.com/blog/staying-alive-covid-19-background-tracing/
A few people were suspicious the backend code isn't published but says here they'll do that too.
https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/blogs/code-behind-nhs-covid-19-app/
My main concern is the accuracy. As said, distance measuring on BT seems very flakey.
Yeah. What the original post was about. Who knows. In theory, it's doable. All determined from the Bluetooth LE signal strength.
For Apple phones you know exactly what the hardware is so could be quite accurate.
Android every type of phone is different. I think I read this is why the app looks at the phone model as they've determined the behaviour of BLE on various phones.
All clever stuff. Will prob still get false positives (and negatives) though.
One presumes they're using a variation on the WHO model of 'contact', which (iirc) is within 1m for 15mins. Obviously they could decide to go with within 0.5m for 10mins or something. Not sure false positives because of that is something that will be a major factor.
I could be told I should lock down fully for couple of weeks because signal suggested I was close enough for long enough to someone infected when I wasn’t, or someone behind a wall is infected. Could be my neighbour. Go to the supermarket, keeping as distant as possible, maybe wearing a face mask, but one person has the virus and everyone there is flagged. Even those in the next aisle to the infected person.
In some of those examples, if you're somewhere for 10 or 15 minutes there is elevated risk - like a neighbour or in a shop. In those instances, I'd want to know, but surely you'd get a test so you could minimise the isolation period?
This is where the clever Oxford Uni algorithm comes in.
Can maybe see the reason for the enduring ID people worry about. Does that allow the system to know about repeat exposure? e.g. you chat to the same postie or neighbour every day for 20 seconds, they then test positive so the app decides it's worth you having a test due to the repeated exposure.
And a few techie coder mates are pretty impressed with what Pivotal/VMware has managed to do.
Yep it’s not bad stuff.
TBH I can see their code coming to an app near you after lockdown for more er frivolous activities 🙂
Early testing of the NHSX app has shown function issues on older iPhones, and a variety of Android phones running older iterations of the OS, which would be a significant issue considering how many cheap Android phones come with older versions of the OS pre-installed, so it’s this issue which has probably triggered the about-turn regarding the A/G app, and some people have also reported battery issues, batteries draining rapidly, etc.
A bit more info from The Register:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/
Sorry it’s a Daily Wail online article, but it does give a bit more detail about Android phones which seem to be having issues with the NHSX app:
https://www.****/news/article-8302943/NHS-building-new-Covid-19-contact-tracing-app.html?ito=rss-flipboard
Early testing of the NHSX app has shown function issues on older iPhones
Don't forget the Apple approach won't work at all if you can't run iOS 13. So iPhone 6 or older is excluded.
Yes, press and public pressure will push us to use Apple/Google - which will reduce what the app can do I think, delay go live, but improve the chance of takeup.
Don’t forget the Apple approach won’t work at all if you can’t run iOS 13. So iPhone 6 or older is excluded.
Depends on Apple they could put out patches to earlier IOS versions, they’ve done it for security patches in the past.
In the NHSX app nothing obviously jumped out at me that they were using anything 13 specific (no combine or swiftui) and I think it’s targeted to run on min of iOS 11
And that, Mister Anderson, is the sound of inevitability.
Doesn't a "you've been near someone" app really just tell you that EVERYONE needs to stay away from EVERYONE else?
I mean, I've just been to the supermarket, i'd guess i've been resonably close to something like 100 people over th3 45min i shopped for. And those 100 people, have each been in contact with another 100 people. Before long, everyones phone will bing up a message saying "isolate" won't it?
(Which is why the "full" lockdown type actions work to slow (and perhaps halt but maybe not) the spread of the virus)
What am i missing?
What am i missing?
The risk of virus transfer is only significant if you have been within 2 metres of someone for 15 minutes.
needs to stay away from EVERYONE else?
I mean, I’ve just been to the supermarket, i’d guess i’ve been resonably close to something like 100 people over th3 45min i shopped for. And those 100 people, have each been in contact with another 100 people. Before long, everyones phone will bing up a message saying “isolate” won’t it?
No - it only joins the dots if one of the parties has positive test (or possibly confirmed symptoms). Assuming the community prevalence is low it shouldn’t trigger often even if you do manage to mingle far too closely and for far too long to 100 ppl in Tesco. The prevalence in the community a few weeks ago was 1:400, assuming its fallen since then and people with symptoms self isolate the number of infected people wandering Tesco must be something like 1:1000, and you won’t be close enough to all of them for long enough to trigger the app (and not everyone will have the app). The more an app alert inconveniences the user the more likely they uninstall (eg if you keeping having to ram a swab up your nose and self isolate waiting for results) so there will be a fine balance on how long and how close the phones need to be to avoid too many false positives. You might hope that the app would act as a useful encouragement to stop people interacting (perhaps it could show your personal interaction rate v everyone else) but I expect that’s not on the radar right now.
@cougar has highlighted my exact concern. Privacy and security is part of what I do for a living and a lot of that filters through to my personal life.
I don't entrust social media platforms with my information any more than I'd entrust a shambolic organisation such as Serco.
'For the greater good' only goes so far.
I will not sign-up to the NHSX system but would to the Apple-Google one.
UK govs for years have failed dismally in developing and implementing IT systems resulting in multi billion £ write-offs and abandoned schemes.
Add Serco into the mix and the centralised nature of the NHSX system.
Apple-Google now claim that have resolved the initial problems with their system
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52740131
How long before hancock announces a change of direction?
