New coronavirus contact tracing app to be trialled from today
A new coronavirus contact tracing app will be trialled in England from today.
The trials will begin in the Isle of Wight, one other area which has not yet been revealed and with a volunteer group, according to the BBC.
It comes after an initial version was ditched by the Government in June following accuracy issues – despite health secretary Matt Hancock suggesting it would be ready by mid-May.
The app is intended to support the NHS Test and Trace effort by keeping a log of others who come into close contact but the plans have been marred by constant delays and privacy concerns.
The Government has since moved on to technology designed by Apple and Google, which is already in use in several countries across the world, even though it initially insisted it would not use it.
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Apple and Google’s version handles data in a more privacy-friendly manner and does not suffer the same type of accuracy error, but reportedly struggles to measure distance between people correctly.
‘We need the app to help stop transmission by tracing close-proximity contacts as quickly and as comprehensively as possible, capturing those contacts we don’t know or don’t remember meeting,’ Professor Christophe Fraser, a scientific adviser to the Department of Health from Oxford University, told the broadcaster.
‘The app should enable us to return to more normal daily activities with the reassurance that our contacts can be rapidly and anonymously notified if we get infected.’
Northern Ireland has already launched its Covid-19 contact tracing app, while Scotland is expected to have its own by autumn.
The Apple and Google approach works by carrying out the contact matching process on a user’s smartphone itself, making it more secure and harder for any potential hackers to access and de-anonymise any data for nefarious means.
Their system also bars authorities from using the technology to collect any location data from users.
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