Coronavirus: How does Covid-19 test-and-trace work? : England and Wales have launched a contact tracing app

[POSTMAN]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52442754" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

England and Wales are launching a contact tracing app on Thursday 24 September.

The app - which can be downloaded on a smartphone - will tell people to self-isolate if their phone detects they were near someone later found to have Covid-19.

How does the contact tracing app work?

People with Apple and Google phones will be asked to download the app, which detects when a fellow user is nearby. (https://covid19.nhs.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

When two phones running the app are near each other, they will make make contact through Bluetooth.

How to use England and Wales' contact-tracing app : (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54250736" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

If they are close for a long enough time, and one of the two owners later shares a positive coronavirus test via the app, then the other will receive an alert.

Hospitality venues such as pubs and restaurants will be asked to display posters with a QR code, which app users will scan to ''check in'' to their location.

The posters will also go up in communal areas of community buildings like universities, hospitals and libraries.

Used alongside manual contact tracing, the app will help identify close contacts of a user who tests positive, or visitors to a premises that has suffered an outbreak.

Northern Ireland launched its app in July, while Scotland's recently-released app was downloaded 600,000 times within 24 hours.

Read more at the link

[PostmanBitesDog]

Privacy organisations have [on September 23, 2020] demanded the Government clarify how people’s private data will be kept safe and secure under the new Test and Trace regulations, which come into full force with the launch of the NHSX App.

Pubs, cafes, restaurants and even workplace canteens are legally required to refuse entry to anyone who declines to use the NHSX App or provide accurate personal details.

Privacy organisations the Open Rights Group (ORG) and Big Brother Watch have jointly instructed data rights agency AWO to send a legal letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care demanding the Government provide information on how citizens’ data will be kept safe and secure.

The Government has so far failed to provide a public Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) or explain how pubs and bars are to legally and securely collect and store the personal details of their customers. Customers must use the NHSX App, or businesses must collect their details, in order to comply with the new law.

As a result, it appears likely that customer information may not be handled safely, legally or competently. Ad hoc collection has already come under criticism for being abused for unlawful advertising purposes and even harassing customers.

The letter also asks whether Government have conducted a DPIA for the Test and Trace programme as a whole. Back in July the Government admitted that the Test and Trace programme has been operating unlawfully from the beginning due to its failure to produce a legally required data safety assessment.

More here.

[tractorboy2]

I'm not upgrading my phone just so I can download this. No use on iphone 6 or older ones.

[POSTMAN]

Re knobhead privacy rights groups ect.
The gov can have my info, yesterday I went to Asda and then Costa...

[PostmanBitesDog]

I'm not upgrading my phone just so I can download this. No use on iphone 6 or older ones.

I wouldn't download that (cr)app either, new phone or old. And if the government enacts a Big Brother law to force everybody to download it, fuq 'em!

Oh, and it's off to a failing start, too.

[k979aaa]

Got told by my GP surgery through NHS England to download it now. Well you all know me by now well do you think I will do it?