The contact-tracing app, accuracy?

Should I give everyone £100? It would have been for the greater good, but I’d have been bankrupt by the time I left the fruit and veg isle.

But this isn’t costing you anything, OK maybe a few minutes of your time. It’s just helping the situation. But, thankfully we’re in the UK, it is optional, and entirely up to you…

You evil, heartless bastard!

I was threatening people with the contact tracing app, not a U2 album…I wouldn’t wish that on anyone

Ok, so I’m guessing the one on Google Play is the old version or such?

I’ll uninstall and see if the current one is downloaded via an NHS site perhaps?

i installed from Google Play – NHS Covid-19

I have a reasonable chance of getting Covid but it will come via my daughter and her school movements which are not covered by this system.

So if you had the app installed you could enter your test results. Obviously you would self-isolate for the 14 days, but the data it gets may start to inform it better (ie, people you have been in contact with outside of the 14 days may show symptoms and you could be the cause which, given enough evidence of this, might make the Government revise its advice). It’s all just big data – they aren’t bothered about Dave from Croydon spending an evening in Lapland with Luscious Lucy and selling the data on, they just want to be more informed about the virus.

That seems odd when a large percentage of phones that are in common usage aren’t compatible with the app.

How large a percentage? My Android phone (S7) is on the cusp of that sort of obsolescence.

Is this actually the case?

BLE was a standard feature of Android somewhere around 4 or 5 I just looked it up, Jelly Bean 4.3. See API 18 here. There must be very few Android handsets out there now that don’t support it, they’d have to be several years old. Dunno about iPhones but I’d expect a similar timescale.

The S7 deffo supports BLE, I looked that up as well.

I was threatening people with the contact tracing app, not a U2 album…I wouldn’t wish that on anyone

Ok, so I’m guessing the one on Google Play is the old version or such?

I’ll uninstall and see if the current one is downloaded via an NHS site perhaps?

You still haven’t found what you’re looking for?

Sorted now thanks Cougar. Followed the link from the NHS webby and it took me to the same app on Play and updated it. Odd, but now it works.👍

I had to uninstall it then install it again to get rid of the code thing. Seems to work fine, no noticeable impact on battery life over last four hours.

So, if I were honest, my remaining reluctance to download is due to my enormous mistrust of this government and anything its even remotely connected with. As above, not really very grown up.
Is there any other reason not to DL? I’m thinking significant bugs that may emerge…

Downloaded, as has the wife. I can’t see a reason not to when I’m using Google maps etc. on a regular basis. And I’ve nothing to hide.

@MoreCashThanDash is assume the same two that flew over here about an hour ago. Leicestershire by the way.

So if you had the app installed you could enter your test results. Obviously you would self-isolate for the 14 days, but the data it gets may start to inform it better (ie, people you have been in contact with outside of the 14 days may show symptoms and you could be the cause which, given enough evidence of this, might make the Government revise its advice). It’s all just big data – they aren’t bothered about Dave from Croydon spending an evening in Lapland with Luscious Lucy and selling the data on, they just want to be more informed about the virus.

The gov get no such data. They just get a notification that someone’s had a positive test (edit: actually I’m not even convinced thy get that). That’s the whole point of the Apple-google solution: there is no central database of your contacts/interactions. Cummings and his data goblins at Palantir have effectively been told to sling one. From a data protection perspective it’s great. Probably not so good if you want to model things, or make judgements about interaction severity (or undo false or malicious positives).

@fadda I’m a proper “get off my data-ist” and was horrified at the original architecture. Even though it claimed to be anonymized, giving “them” the patterns of my interactions was a step too far. The new architecture based on the Apple-Google API is very different and makes it almost impossible for them to get anything out of you. I’m more than happy to have this running. The german, Irish, Swiss and Austrian apps use the same architecture. if you can get the swiss or Germans to download anything like this it has to be pretty private – they’ve only just started to allow streetview to take photos and dashcams are totally verboten!

You still haven’t found what you’re looking for?

👏👏

assume the same two that flew over here about an hour ago. Leicestershire by the way.

Not far over the border in Derbyshire, as the Apache flies. Have you downloaded the app as well? 😱

fadda
Full Member
So, if I were honest, my remaining reluctance to download is due to my enormous mistrust of this government and anything its even remotely connected with.

I get it mate, genuinely but I see this app as being no more malignant than other apps I use and potentially much, much more important.

No point me giving the government crap about their Covid response when I won’t even install an app.

Lol, I missed the joke cougar.😁

Downloaded it earlier. Now sat in the car waiting for my daughter at school. I wonder if the woman in the car next to me has it

No point me giving the government crap about their Covid response when I won’t even install an app.

End of thread.

No point me giving the government crap about their Covid response when I won’t even install an app.

Very good point, thanks Poopscoop

So, if I were honest, my remaining reluctance to download is due to my enormous mistrust of this government and anything its even remotely connected with

to quote Brian Cox (him of the big brain), it uses Apple and Google APIs not government. given that you’ve already installed their OS what’s the problem?

I think Cougar has won the forum today and can go an sit down and put his feet up. Coffee on keyboard etc (not a euphemism)

I think Cougar has won the forum today and can go an sit down and put his feet up. Coffee on keyboard etc (not a euphemism)

he’d be nothing without my set up line 🙁

I thought cougar was expressing a genuine paternal concern for a forum member…. Instead he was using me for a U2 joke.

Bar steward.😁

But this isn’t costing you anything, OK maybe a few minutes of your time. It’s just helping the situation. But, thankfully we’re in the UK, it is optional, and entirely up to you…

My point was that I objected to the concept of being forced to do something.

I’d download the app, or give £100 to a friend. I’d object to being forced to do either.

Is this actually the case?

BLE was a standard feature of Android somewhere around 4 or 5 I just looked it up, Jelly Bean 4.3. See API 18 here. There must be very few Android handsets out there now that don’t support it, they’d have to be several years old. Dunno about iPhones but I’d expect a similar timescale.

The S7 deffo supports BLE, I looked that up as well.

It works, hence my comment that it’s on the cusp of obsolescence. I was refuting the point “a large percentage” of people out there are using incompatible phones. My phones compatible and is old enough to be borderline unusable.

How many people are still using an iPhone 5 (I think that was mentioned as the newest iPhone that wouldn’t run the app)?

Reading this thread wow! think the straps are too tight on some peoples tin foil hats its cutting off the circulation to their brains. Everything you do online is tracked Strava tracked, Spotify tracked, Youtube tracked, Tesco tracked, iplayer tracked, im guessing this forum is 3rd party so likely tracked for product dev too. The only difference between Strava tracking you and the NHS is this will actually help someone else and not just some company.

Messages from my Mum (who I haven’t mentioned this app to)…

I downloaded the Covid 19 app and used it at the hairdressers for track and trace

I can honestly say it was easy

She has to ask me how to use email… but she can do it… we can all do it…

My phones compatible and is old enough to be borderline unusable.

Plenty of phones will be ‘compatible’ but struggle to install or run it, for various reasons. Basically, if you can still update the OS via Google or Apple, you can install this and crack on. If you’re stuck on a real old OS, or some cut’n’shut custom version of Android… it’s time to a consider a more modern updatable secure phone anyway.

Roughly 25% of apple devices are running iOS 12 or earlier and the app needs iOS 13.5. Plenty of people will be still using iPhone 6’s and others won’t have updated more modern versions. Android phones should be better as anything post 2015 should work and there’s less old ones still in use.

It hardly matters as plenty of people just won’t install the app or interact with track & trace as the financial hit of being told to self isolate is very high and seems to get forgotten about on here.

You guys need to wander over to the “Easing Scottish Lockdown” thread and see how much discussion was had about our version of the tracing app.

Android phones should be better as anything post 2015 should work

Any Apple phone “post 2015” should also work. The iPhone 6 (the latest one not to work) was their 2014 model. iPhone 6s was 2015. iPhone 6 sold alongside the 6s for a good while, but was gone “post 2015”.

We’ve had such an app in Qatar for a while and it’s legally mandatory with big fines for not complying.

Good points:

Your central COVID status is run through this. Your screen shows green for fine, yellow quarantining, red positive. You have to show it entering everywhere, literally any building. Life isn’t possible without a green status. Being caught out with yellow or red is legally badges news. Works well.

Bad points:

The Bluetooth proximity thing was dodgy so essentially turned off. No one knows of anyone who’s been pinged for it. Just a faulty concept.

For some reason the app wants access to everything on your phone. Doesn’t affect me as there isn’t anything sensitive on my phone but it is a massive civil liberties privacy issue. People like lawyers or those in big oil out here simply have a burner phone for the one app. Very authoritarian.

Will have it be kept on as a population monitoring thing? Quite possibly as governments love to monitor people as much as they can get away with and this has moved the Overton Window, hopefully temporarily.

Any Apple phone “post 2015” should also work.

Yep, seems to run fine on my 2016 iPhone SE.

You guys need to wander over to the “Easing Scottish Lockdown” thread and see how much discussion was had about our version of the tracing app.

It’s lucky no-one from Scotland visits England or Wales…or vice versa…otherwise we’d have to have an app that worked across the UK 🙄

It’s lucky no-one from Scotland visits England or Wales…or vice versa…otherwise we’d have to have an app that worked across the UK

Or Ireland, or France, or Italy, or Germany, or Sweden, or Spain, or Australia, or Qatar etc etc etc. Is there a point you were trying to make?

This is not Qatar… although I had some of those worries about the app that was abandoned here in Southern Britain. New app installed and running here now. Should have had it to help with getting the virus properly dampened down over the summer, ready for the restart of education… but hey… let’s crack on with it now.

2 out of the three iPhones in our house are too old (iPhone 6 is the cut off point not the iPhone 5 as mentioned earlier).

While I get the greater good concept there is no way I am upgrading two perfectly good phones to do so.

I wonder if I am going to be banned from entering places without it, as per the previous posters comment about the Gym.

PS just realised my in-laws have one suitable phone and one not and my mums phone (iPhone 7) is only just suitable despite her only having had it a couple of months…

As for

I’m not going to download it as I think it will spend its whole time giving false positives. I work in a hospital so am temperature checked every time I enter the building. Patients who I don’t interact with pass within 2 metres of me all day everyday but there is a wall between us that the app won’t know about and we now have to wear masks which we didn’t have to bother with for the first 4 months of lockdown which I still can’t get my head round that rational for. Also my personal phone doesn’t stay with me all day as I have a work one that won’t have the app on as its not deemed safe by IT so my own phone won’t have an accurate picture of my movements either

I’ve downloaded it. It’s compulsory for ordering a beer at the Mad Squirrel. If other pubs do the same we will have excellent coverage of beer drinkers!

Or Ireland, or France, or Italy, or Germany, or Sweden, or Spain, or Australia, or Qatar etc etc etc. Is there a point you were trying to make?

What, you actually think it’s a good thing?! Wow 😂

I’ve downloaded it, seems very user friendly so far.

Like others on here, my view is that if it helps either by alerting me to exposure (and so allowing me to isolate early rather than risk spreading it) and/or inform a better data picture, then all good.

Sadly, there’s people out there acting in an unbelievable way – heard from my wife tonight that one of the other mums (not a friend but we know her kid in the year group) has said online in some group that she’s had symptoms for a couple of days and is waiting on a test result – all while taking the kid to school!!! If the app gives some level of protection against cretins like that, I’m all for it. I couldn’t carry on my conscience if I was asymptomatic after contact with someone like that and passed it onto a vulnerable person – whether I knew them or not.

I’d be happy with compulsory check in to gain entry to shops, gyms, etc if it made it harder for non-compliant people to go about unencumbered.

You can turn it off quite easily in the work style situation if it really bothers you. Turn it back on once out and about