Result. That’s what people are asking for, keeping our data away from the Government.
You're mixing up "government" and "Tory party" - an understandable confusion in what is now essentially a one-party state.
Edit - in response to oob.
No. It doesn't work because phones don't behave that way by design. Read the register article.
That’s what people are asking for
No, it isn’t. People have been very clear what they are asking for.
The issue here isn't that the government will know where you were a week last Tuesday, it's that they may (will) use the information they gather to undermine democracy.
This app has become an instrument of divide and rule before it's even been launched. (See Danny h's last point)
I can see all sorts of flaws but we’re told it worked a treat in South Korea so who knows.
Yeah but South Korea are what "Comical Jenny" Harries considers a country with a poorly developed health system, not like our own "exemplary" system.
Pretty sure it was.
No it wasn't my point at all. My point was that this Govt have a habit of doing things in slightly underhand way and of not following due process. Anyone remember Grayling's Brexit shipping plan?
I'm not that fussed on my personal privacy; but I am fussed on population level privacy. Especailly when there is a better, more secure option that will actually work.
Unfortunately NHSX will not be handling the data, they are commissioning the work but private companies will be administering the servers. There will be mission creep, there will be American export of the data and it will be hacked.
But what exactly are they going to find out?
Additionally the procurement process was not put out to competitive tendering it was passed to one of the favoured companies with a nod and a wink
If you went out for a full competitive tendering process, this would take up to 6 months.
Speaking to my procurement friends most of this is a waste of time, involving box ticking, and they ultimately pick who they want on day 1. The Government have just taken the short cut.
It is worth pointing out as well that the Google/Apple solution allows for non-centralised, entirely anonymous contact tracing. Almost the same benefits as a centralised system but without the drawbacks of the piles of data for later analysis.
And this is the point. Nothing in the small print says the research to be conducted on the data collected can't be used for non-Covid related research. Why not just put a big flag on the app saying 'once this shit is over we'll delete your data'.
But no, its going to be stored on the National Cyber Security Centre's computers indefinitely and overseen by people with form in manipulating data for electoral purposes. If it looks like a duck etc.
Will a bespoke English (UK) app place restrictions on future foreign travel?
I imagine most of this is known to thread regulars, but it is Chris Whitty as of four days ago, talking about C19:
Will a bespoke English (UK) app place restrictions on future foreign travel?
I could imagine that the Mad Cow episode illustrates what will happen too our foreign travel - with or without some app.
That’s not the trade-off – it’s between some number of lives being saved now and the number of lives lost in the future because the Conservatives gathered the data needed to finally put the last nail into the coffin of democracy in the UK
So to confirm, you're happy to let a few more people die now just in case we are unable to have democracy in the future due to some blatantly obvious plan.
I'm with Kryton here - seems to be a lot of people worried about rights and not about responsibilities.
Just checking, are those of us who are dubious of this app "enemies of the people" yet?
So you don’t trust the NHS (NHSX) with proximity contact tracing and think that should be outsourced to private firms. Also you don’t trust the NHS with procurement.
Based on performance to date, I have no confidence in the UK gov successfully delivering an IT project of this scale as quickly as they have done, without making major cockups. They are simply incapable of doing it. If you read some of the analysis so far, people have already pointed out major flaws in the approach.
Do I think contact tracing should be outsourced to private firms? I think there are huge privacy concerns about this, whoever does it, so I'm not going to wholeheartedly endorse that solution either. However, the approach proposed by Google and Apple does start from a position that is more privacy focused (and technically more likely to work).
On the NHS procurement issue, the UK government has directly intervened in the supply process, and demonstrated a lack of transparency and competence in their actions.
So to confirm, you’re happy to let a few more people die now just in case we are unable to have democracy in the future due to some blatantly obvious plan.
It remains to be seen if an app that doesn't work when your phone is in your pocket will save many lives, but yes. It's another example of people giving up their liberty to gain security and ending up with neither. Uighur schmuighur.
I’m with Kryton here – seems to be a lot of people worried about rights and not about responsibilities.
Nope - simply people with a different view of what constitutes rights and responsibilities.
Some wilful twisting going on here. To have concerns about the lack of limits on the scope of data capture, retention periods, and access to said data by anyone other than public health bodies is entirely understandable… it is not people saying they will not cooperate with a government scheme that relies on an app and a degree of data sharing and lower than normal privacy levels.
I’m all for using phones to help with this, the government needs to explain why they are not offering clear limits on how the data will be used, and by whom, and why they must use this bespoke and flawed (form the initial concept level architecture outline onwards) closed system rather than building on the one that has been design by the phone companies to minimise abuse of data and maximise the contact analysis success, and adoption rates of apps that use it.
I think there will be a big uptake in the use of burner phones.
The situation reminds me of how during WW2 nearly everybody got involved in the black market in some way. People who previously would have never dreamt of breaking the law would bend the rules for a fresh egg or two.
We're likely to see growth in the black and grey economies in the post Covid wasteland. More people are going to want to encrypt their lives away from the government's gaze.
Just checking, are those of us who are dubious of this app “enemies of the people” yet?
Probably.
Another interesting thing will be who the government will be trying to get to front the campaign to maximise uptake. I've got a few I reckon they would like:
Captain Tom would be top of the list, I reckon. Then Queenie.
Worth a sweepstake on its own, I feel.
I’m with Kryton here – seems to be a lot of people worried about [data] rights and not about responsibilities
those people being the government? 🙂
The point isn't that people are refusing to use the only app that might save lives. People are concerned that we are being asked to use an app that is demonstrably worse than an alternative, to the point it probably wont work.
It’s another example of people giving up their liberty to gain security and ending up with neither.
We've totally given up liberty for 7 weeks and we've gained a flattening of the curve. It appears to have been worth it and I suspect we'll be doing more of it.
Another interesting thing will be who the government will be trying to get to front the campaign to maximise uptake.
Probably not Mad Handoncock or Comical Jenny, I'm willing to bet.
The issue here isn’t that the government will know where you were a week last Tuesday, it’s that they may (will) use the information they gather to undermine democracy.
How, exactly? Spell it out for us hard of thinking? What will they have that they don't already have from social media, tax and employment records, NHS records?
I have concerns with the proposal, I can see the arguments for something better, but I'm not seeing an obvious opportunity the clear and present danger that makes me think I wouldn't download the app.
A lot of you seem to be mixing up your hatred of this wretched government with an over searching conspiracy theory that makes you come across a little bit "tin foil hat".
We’ve totally given up liberty for 7 weeks and we’ve gained a flattening of the curve. It appears to have been worth it and I suspect we’ll be doing more of it.
It always seems worth it in the short term - that's the point.
IS it worth having a separate thread for the Economic side of Covid?
This one is a bit like the old Brexit one, forgive me, but it's big, hard to keep up with, and can occasionally become a circular argument between a few key players.
Economics are an interest of mine, but when I've brought it up before I get the feeling that some people find it distasteful to talk about it when people are dying.
@Chew - per my comments above - they could find out an awful lot about you. Who you met, where you went, where you shop, particular places you and your friends visit. The data is NOT anonymised properly and much like Facebook can join the dots so can Cambridge Analytica Faculty. Faculty being the firm who have developed the app and will be 'looking after' the data.
Note Ben Warner (he on the Sage committee and who ran the analytics for Vote Leave and appointed by Dominic Cummings brother owns Faculty. Is that not just a little but suspect. Should we not at least raise an eyebrow that the guys behind Cambridge Analytica and of whom some now have a sphere of influence directly to No 10 are going to be overseeing this data?
After all this is just the sort of demographic data CA was paid to mine from Facebook wasn't it?
some people find it distasteful to talk about it when people are dying.
As opposed to talking about data privacy? 🙂
But yes, lets revive the economics thread. I'm bored of reading stuff about death figures.
How, exactly? Spell it out for us hard of thinking? What will they have that they don’t already have from social media, tax and employment records, NHS records?
I have concerns with the proposal, I can see the arguments for something better, but I’m not seeing an obvious opportunity the clear and present danger that makes me think I wouldn’t download the app.
Exhibit A: Brexit
In ADDITION to all that information they would also (supposing the app worked as hoped) know who you interacted with every minute of the day. Figuring out how that might help an advertising/election campaign is left as an exercise for the reader.
Here you go P-Jay. Mods will probably close it 🙂
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/coronanomics/
Figuring out how that might help an advertising/election campaign is left as an exercise for the reader.
Don't leave it as an exercise. Spell it out.
It appears to have been worth it
To you, maybe. If you are one of the millions who have lost their livelihoods and will shortly lose their homes, the picture may look a little different.
Without a radical change to the way we run our economy, there is a real danger that the COVID-19 casualties will look like a minor blip. On the bright side, if we made that radical change, the world would be a better place for almost everyone.
Fundamentally the app is flawed because it doesn't work unless the phone is awake.
How, exactly? Spell it out for us hard of thinking? What will they have that they don’t already have from social media, tax and employment records, NHS records?
Ok, I'll go.
You attend a peaceful march in mid 2021 protesting against the no deal exit and subsequent shitty deal with a re elected Trump.
There are about ten plants in the march, either put there by nefarious groups or the police or whoever. They have tracking apps on their phones like you. Someone, maybe one of the plants maybe some general oik, chucks a brick at a copper. All hell breaks loose and a small scuffle erupts between a minority of the crowd and some police. The majority of peaceful demonstrators disperse and go home.
Later on, to neutralise potential further peaceful marches, the government decide to blacklist people who they can prove were at the initial incident. Putting orders on them not being within x distance of a future march etc on pain of arrest.....
Orwellian tin-foil-hat-ism?
Possibly. Maybe even probably. But would you buy a used car from Johnson or Cummings?
Coronavirus: Mass testing earlier 'would have been beneficial'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52545662
Its very frustrating to hear Whitty say that we didnt have the capacity
We very much did, 100s if not 1000s of qPCR machines sitting in research institutes & universities, not to mention private companies that could have been involved in testing
indeed the PHE testing centre now doing the bulk of the work in Milton Keynes is made up of machines taken from unis & institutes when they finally decided more testing was the a good idea
Here you go P-Jay. Mods will probably close it 🙂
> https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/coronanomics/
If the mods see this I'd quite like two CV threads. Technical/Medical and Economics/Political.
Anything with Crossover could go in Economics/Political.
Total respect if that doesn't happen but people who want to know the detail of T-Cells or find a Gresham Lecture probably don't want to wade through something akin to the Brexit thread.
You attend a peaceful march in mid 2021 protesting against the no deal exit and subsequent shitty deal with a re elected Trump.
There are about ten plants in the march, either put there by nefarious groups or the police or whoever. They have tracking apps on their phones like you. Someone, maybe one of the plants maybe some general oik, chucks a brick at a copper. All hell breaks loose and a small scuffle erupts between a minority of the crowd and some police. The majority of peaceful demonstrators disperse and go home.
Later on, to neutralise potential further peaceful marches, the government decide to blacklist people who they can prove were at the initial incident. Putting orders on them not being within x distance of a future march etc on pain of arrest…..
Orwellian tin-foil-hat-ism?
Or internet whataboutery?
As I said, I have concerns about the app. But all I'm hearing appears to be slightly hysterical conspiracy theories about hypothetical things that might happen in the future, rather than a rational, fact based explanation as to why I shouldn't download the app to try and help the track and trace. Maybe it's the tone of the debate that is stopping me getting the facts?
I think there will be a big uptake in the use of burner phones.
You attend a peaceful march in mid 2021 protesting against the no deal exit and subsequent shitty deal with a re elected Trump.
Or even simpler - we identify a guy in a marginal constituency who interacts with a lot of other people we have previously idenified as swing voters. We bombard him with propaganda, tailored to his interests using the Facebook information we already hold about him.
Total respect if that doesn’t happen but people who want to know the detail of T-Cells or find a Gresham Lecture
Id suggest that if you want genuine scientific or medical advice a thread on a biking forum probably not the place to be
Its also the case that politics & economics has shaped the governments response to this crisis and that untangling the 2 is not that easy, deaths from this crisis being caused lockdown as well as directly from the virus
If the mods see this I’d quite like two CV threads. Technical/Medical and Economics/Political.
Plus one to this 👍
To you, maybe. If you are one of the millions who have lost their livelihoods and will shortly lose their homes, the picture may look a little different.
Well yeah. I was talking specifically about the freedom sacrafice.
You attend a peaceful march in mid 2021 protesting against the no deal exit and subsequent shitty deal with a re elected Trump.
There are about ten plants in the march, either put there by nefarious groups or the police or whoever. They have tracking apps on their phones like you. Someone, maybe one of the plants maybe some general oik, chucks a brick at a copper. All hell breaks loose and a small scuffle erupts between a minority of the crowd and some police. The majority of peaceful demonstrators disperse and go home.
Later on, to neutralise potential further peaceful marches, the government decide to blacklist people who they can prove were at the initial incident. Putting orders on them not being within x distance of a future march etc on pain of arrest…..
I really don't want people to die with their lungs full of gunk to save me the bother of uninstalling an app before I chuck a brick at a copper.
On top of all gatherings of more than two people are *already* illegal. That makes protests illegal and is a far bigger problem than a tracking app, but we're tolerating it for the duration.
Also all they know is your phone was there. With facial recognition they can work out if *you* were there.
The tracing app could have benefits outside the obvious track and trace. Ask Prince Andrew. He's been using it for years (19 I think).
I actually think it's doomed to failure on the basis that a lot of individuals won't see the benefit to them personally (as opposed to broader societal benefit) so won't install it. Now if they embedded it in a Candy Crush or something, they'd be on a winner.
But all I’m hearing appears to be slightly hysterical conspiracy theories about hypothetical things that might happen in the future
Given that you know Cummings will use data to manipulate outcomes. He has a track record of doing that, once in the North east and again, on a larger scale for Brexit. You also know that he has a track record of floating controversial information to distract from uncomfortable questioning; the £350 million on the side of a bus, the 100,000 test a day for Covid19.
So, here's a group of people that are accustomed to getting data using it for their own means, to promote policies that will probably be unpopular by a Party that he can guarantee will cover for him and his friends for their actions.
Happy with that?
Id suggest that if you want genuine scientific or medical advice a thread on a biking forum probably not the place to be
THere have been hundreds of useful posts on this thread. They've just been drowned out by the noise.
Its also the case that politics & economics has shaped the governments response to this crisis and that untangling the 2 is not that easy, deaths from this crisis being caused lockdown as well as directly from the virus
Agree, which I why I said:
Anything with Crossover could go in Economics/Political.
....not sure why you snipped out of your quote.
I read the technical description of the app.
It does not track or store your actual location at any point, it only records the devices that your device was near to, and only for the last 28 days
It does not send anything to the central server until you self diagnose and press the button
You only need to tell it the first part of your post code
On face value the government will not know where you were last Tuesday
If you can match the installation id to actual people then it is different.
So take the example of the protest up there. So what? All you know is that the plant was in contact with some phones, you don't know who they belong to. Given enough plants, enough surveillance, and enough time then you could identify people. But there are going to be much easier ways. Just follow them home on CCTV for example.
Or take advertising. Its a dream for advertisers. Your associate liked this, maybe you do as well. Trouble is its the same thing. There is no way for an advertiser to know the ID for a given person.
On the other hand:
(1) The apps won't stay active in peoples pockets
(2) There is no statement on how long data is retained when/if you submit it
(3) It may evolve in the future beyond what it currently is, and yes, who trusts tech boy cummings, who's first answer to anything must be 'lets make an app'
(4) We will all install the google/apple one anyway because we will want to travel
Happy with that?
Are you happy with a ban on all gatherings off more than two people? No, me neither. ...but I'm living with it to flatten the curve.
