Trials of the contact-tracing app the NHS will use to help Britain come out of coronavirus lockdown will begin on the Isle of Wight this week.
The app, which will monitor whether someone has been close to a person diagnosed with COVID-19, is a part of the Government’s ‘test, track and trace’ approach.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced a trial will start on the island of 140,000 people later this week before the app is used on mainland Britain.
It will use bluetooth to map where someone has been and who they have had close contact with – defined as being within six-and-a-half feet (2m) for 15 minutes or more.
If someone they had recently been close to is diagnosed with the coronavirus, this will be registered in an NHS database and the app user will receive a notification warning them and, if necessary, advising them to self-isolate.
There are concerns that not enough people will download the app for it to work. Experts say around half the population should use it if it’s to be effective – some 35million people.
And the app, made by NHSX, the digital department of the health service, has raised concerns because people’s information will be stored in a Government database.
Technology developed by Google and Apple, however, has managed to achieve the same set-up containing data within someone’s own phone, giving them greater privacy and control over information about where they’ve been and with whom.
Officials are expected to announce more details about the app later this afternoon.
The NHSX app, which will be ‘completely confidential’, will need to be downloaded by more than half of the UK population in a ‘huge national effort’ to work, he added.
The Government will launch a widespread contact tracing scheme to track down people who have been in touch with infected patients
Mr Shapps described smartphone apps for tracing the spread of coronavirus as the ‘best possible way to help the NHS’.
Mr Shapps told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘The idea is that we will encourage as many people to take this up as possible.
‘This is going to be a huge national effort and we need, for this to work, 50 per cent to 60 per cent of people to be using this app.
‘Not everybody has a smartphone and I appreciate that for various reasons not everybody will download it but it will be the best possible way to help the NHS.’
Public sector workers are expected to be the first to be offered the app today, while it will be made available to the wider public as the week goes on, Politico reports.
He added: ‘This is a fantastic way to be able to ensure that we are able to really keep a lid on this going forward and that we don’t get that second wave.’
The app will be trialled on the island because it is a small, self-contained community which is easier to control.
It will be easier for officials to get a clear idea of what proportion of the population has downloaded the app, and also to stop people moving in and out of the group without being noticed.
This will, it is hoped, make spotting and isolating cases or clusters a faster and cleaner process.
But privacy concerns have been raised about the way the app works.
Dr Michael Veale, a lecturer in digital rights at University College London, said on BBC Radio 4 this morning: ‘One thing people need to do is have deep trust that this data will not be misused or that the system will not turn slowly into something that starts to identify people more individually.’
The NHSX app focuses on a centralised scheme in which any interactions between people are recorded by the phone and then sent back to a server run by the NHS.
Here, all data on all movements will be kept. This level of data collection on a person’s movements is fraught with hazards, experts claim.
The NHS, unsurprisingly, is facing questions as to why it needs to develop the app in this manner when other countries are plumping for the more privacy-centric approach.
Google and Apple have managed to develop an app which serves the same function but in a way that contains all the necessary data inside someone’s phone.
Both companies place a high value on the privacy of their users and their system, which is designed to work optimally on both iOS and Android, is decentralised.
No movement or tracking information will be stored on a central server, meaning it would be invisible to Google, Apple or the NHS.
That app works by exchanging a digital ‘token’ with every phone someone comes within Bluetooth range of over a fixed period.
If one person develops symptoms of the coronavirus or tests positive, they will be able to enter this information into the app.
The phone will then send out a notification to all the devices they have exchanged tokens with during the infection window, to make people aware they may have been exposed to COVID-19.
The process is confined to the individual’s handset and the scope of the information sent to the NHS is strictly limited.
Experts fear that the system could be used to label people as infected or at-risk in a way that other people would be able to see, meaning they could face discrimination.
Dr Veale said: ‘We’ve seen in China the traffic light system of red, yellow, green – “are you suitable to come into this building or come into work” – and a centralised system is really just a few steps away from creating those kind of persistent identifiers that allow you to make that kind of approach.
‘Whereas a decentralised system really does proximity tracing and does not do more than that. People can trust that technically.’
With the NHS’s approach, people will have to trust the health service and therefore the Government, will their personal information.
‘In the Apple and Google approach… you don’t need to trust Apple and Google with your data because it never leaves your device,’ Dr Veale added.
‘It removes the need to have an identifiable central database of any sort whatsoever. This is being used in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Estonia and also in Ireland.’
The app will form a crucial part of the Government’s three-point ‘test, track and trace’ plan for helping the country to recover from its current crisis.
This will work by officials closely watching where and when new cases and outbreaks of the virus appear and isolating people to stamp them out.
First, anyone who is suspected of having the virus will be tested – there are still currently limits on who can get a test, but these are expected to be lifted by the time the country moves out of lockdown.
If someone tests positive, they will be told to self-isolate as long as they are otherwise healthy and don’t need hospital treatment.
Their households will have to isolate with them and then Government ‘contact tracers’ will work to establish a social network around the patient.
This will involve working out everyone who has come into close enough contact with the patient that they are at risk of having been infected with COVID-19.
All the people in that social network will then also be told to self-isolate until they can be sure they’re virus free, or until they are diagnosed with a test. If they test positive, the same contact tracing procedure will begin for them.
The app will be a vital part of this contact tracing effort, because it will be able to alert people who the patient may have put at risk without them knowing – at a shop, for example.
Information collected by the app will also give the Government insight into where the virus is spreading.